Holiday
by Nightfall Rising
Summary: AU fusion-fic, shonen-ai. Chapters 15 and16 up, in which Xel's POV reigns supreme, the party is mazoku-style and so is the mercy, and Zoemelguster sharpens his knife.
1. By the Pricking of Lina's Thumbs

Disclaimer: The Slayers characters belong to Hajime Kinzoku, Software Sculpters, TVTokyo, SoftX, Colombia Pictures, and suchlike organizations, while the situation and all the good dialogue belongs to Philip Barry (playwright), Sidney Bushman and David Ogdan Stewart (Scriptwriters). The only things that belong to me are the bungee cords strapping them together.  
  
OOC warning: Zel turned out both extremely chipper and surprisingly morbid in this fic. Not by turns, at once, although you don't see so much of the morbid in this chapter. This is what comes of running with demon-wolves. Or possibly it's because he's only single in it for a period of approximately five minutes.  
  
Yaoi warning: it exists. So does yuri, you may infer, although it's ignorable.  
  
Pairing warning? O--HOHOHOHOHOHOHO! (wipes eyes, chuckling weakly) But don't worry, gents. The horror won't last.  
  
And I'm spelling the Chaos Dragon's name with two A's, because 'Garv' is just ugly-sounding, says I.  
  
^w^ ^w^ ^w^ ^w^  
  
Holiday  
  
by Nightfall Rising  
  
part one  
  
^w^ ^w^ ^w^ ^w^  
  
"Five minutes," the blue man called over his shoulder as he hopped down from his dragon and rushed into one of the faculty apartments of the Royal University in Sailoon. It had a nice coat of pale but warm yellow paint and singe-marks on the flagstones, and shining new windows behind blackened and battered iron shutters. As he started to batter on the door, there was a large flash of light behind him, which he ignored, and then the sounds of tea pouring into clattering ceramic cups.  
  
Inside the house, two women were sitting with their feet up in front of a cheerful fire, sharing a newspaper. "Someone's knocking at the door," noted the mauve-haired one, her green eyes fixed on her favorite comic strip, *Little Gabriel and the Light Sword.*  
  
"Yes," the red-haired one answered, casually putting down an article on the latest brass racquet's tournament and picking up the 'Magic and Nature' section just as casually.  
  
"I'm not expecting anyone," the first woman said as the blue man pounded harder, and turned to the literature section.  
  
"Neither am I," the second one agreed, reading with interest about water's magical evaporation point and the relationship between explosive spells and humidity.  
  
"Hey, open up, you two," the blue man yelled through the door, "or I'll break the door down! I have sharp elvish ears, you know; I know you're in there! I can hear pages turning from out here!"  
  
"Hey!" the red-haired woman exclaimed, her ruddy eyes lighting as she tossed the paper down. They both dashed for the door and opened it.  
  
"Well, if it isn't Zel Greyweir!" the taller woman said.  
  
He laughed, and returned their energetic hugs, careful not to spear them with the silvery-lavender wires that served him for hair. "Well, if it isn't Lina and Sylphiel," he teased back.  
  
"So," Lina chuckled, planting a loose fist on her maroon bathrobe, "what happened to Mister Gloom and Doom? I guess you must have really enjoyed that hot spring."  
  
"Girls, it was great," he said, leaning blissfully against the doorway. "Wonderful. Blissful, even."  
  
"I guess he liked it," Sylphiel noted, smiling.  
  
"I steam-soaked, I sparred, I met the one I'm going to marry..." They scoffed good-naturedly, and he said, "No, I mean it. I met The One."  
  
The women exchanged a look. Without another word, Lina had untied his hood and stolen it, and Sylphiel was dragging him to the couch. "Okay, Zel," Lina said firmly, "who is she? What's he like?"  
  
"Tell us all about it," Sylphiel finished, neatly avoiding Lina's pronoun confusion.  
  
"Oh, he's just great," Zel smiled, lounging back. "He's cunning, he's scrawny, he's got demonic yellow eyes and the most intriguing scars..."  
  
"An excellent qualification in a husband if I've ever heard one," Lina said dryly.  
  
"No, I mean it, girls," Zel said seriously, sitting up. "Valgaav's the one. He wants the life I want, the angst I want, the vengeance I want. I didn't know they made them like that anymore."  
  
They looked at each other again, and Sylphiel ventured, "The same vengeance, Zel? What did your grandfather do to him?"  
  
"Grafted a horn on his head. He says it's hell on the headboards."  
  
"Oh."  
  
"He says? Don't you know yet?" Lina teased. Sylphiel swatted her, and Zel grinned.  
  
"Now, girls, I've got to go," he said, standing up and looking for his hood. "We've got a date, and I haven't seen him since Friday."  
  
"But really," interrupted Lina, who was sitting on it, "what do you know about this boy? What kind of family does he have?"  
  
"Oh, I don't know," Zel answered casually. "Does it matter? I think he said a father and two sisters. Or maybe one of them was a brother. Where's my hood?"  
  
"What do you think?" Sylphiel asked Lina.  
  
"I can see it now," she answered, rolling her eyes. "Father too old to work, brother gambles away his pay from the feed store, sister can't keep a job because she's too pretty, you know, and they all have to live in three square feet of some higher mazoku's dungeon..."  
  
"Hey, wouldn't that be great?" Zel asked brightly. "Zel Greyweir comes and takes him away from all that misery."  
  
"Oh, here's your hood," Lina said, disgusted, and they followed him to the door.  
  
"Listen, Zel," Sylphiel said with uncomfortable auntliness, "Our professorships, even at the Royal Academy, don't pay much, but if you ever find that you need anything..."  
  
Zel chuckled. "You worry too much, Sylphiel," he said. "You know me. If anything comes up that I can't handle, I just run as fast as I can until I find myself upside-down on the ceiling. That way I can take it by surprise. Besides, I've got an expedition out, and if it comes back with what I think it will... Anyway, I really have to run now. My dragon's probably getting impatient."  
  
'His' dragon, when he came out, was on her third cup of strong black tea, which made her less impatient than cranky. She bitched about the chill, his excessive stony weight, the way the buildings interrupted the air currents, and landed three times to make pit stops before finally dropping him off on an island choked with oak trees, in front of a massive structure like the unholy love child of a cathedral and a summer resort.  
  
"Hey," he said. "The address was 1 W.P.I. Place."  
  
"This is it," she shrugged, uninterested. "Number 1, Wolf Pack Island."  
  
"But..." he trailed off, realizing that anything he could add here would make him sound daunted. "He must work here," he decided.  
  
"Whatever. I assume you'll want to be picked up later?"  
  
"Please," he said, trying not to sound fervent. The building was varnished the pale beige of dried pus, fringed with a darker, ruddier brown in places.  
  
She flipped him a piece of polished goldstone. "Here's the beeper. Just charge it when you're ready to leave, and the company will send someone out to come get you."  
  
"Thanks," he said, and watched her fly away. A mangy, daring seagull snatched the smart bow off the end of her tail and headed back to shore triumphantly, the pink ribbon hanging limply from its beak, like dinner. She swung her head around to scorch it with laser breath for its presumption, and the ribbon's ashes floated gently down to the water, shimmering around a few toasted feathers.  
  
Someone else might have swallowed, or made a joke. Zel himself, a few years earlier, might have sighed, or raised an eyebrow. Bereft of eyebrows, he simply turned around and started circling the building, looking for the servant's entrance.  
  
It wasn't much more comforting than the rest of the building, or even much smaller. The knocker was shaped like the heads of two monsters, split in half and sewn together badly. Zel used his fist, instead, in the not- exactly-happy confidence that his knuckles would make themselves heard without benefit of brass or steel.  
  
[end part one]  
  
Important Notes: This story is not only based but riveted into the cement of an absolutely marvelous movie called 'Holiday,' starring Katherine Hepburn and Cary Grant, played respectively in this fic by Xel and Zel. If you haven't seen it (and most of you probably haven't; it's not even as well known as 'Philadelphia Story, gloom), please, please, make an effort to! This is a black and white movie! It's from the time when movies were about the acting and the scripts, and not about disguising the lack of either with splashy special effects! Go see it, go! You'll also better appreciate my artistry if you do (wink). 


	2. Trouble in Purgatory

Disclaimer: see previous chapter  
  
Notes: And today's game is: spot the Utena reference. ;^  
  
Warnings for some yaoi and Val's mouth.  
  
^w^ ^w^ ^w^ ^w^  
  
Holiday  
  
by Nightfall Rising  
  
part two  
  
^w^ ^w^ ^w^ ^w^  
  
The man--mazoku?--who opened the door was smoke in a tuxedo. His hair was the color of thunderheads, his skin the choked black-grey of exhaust fumes. His eyes were the blue-grey that wafts up from pipe bowls, and he was translucent at the edges. You could see the crisp white edges of his starchily ironed shirt disappear into the bones of his wrist, see his collar though his dark jugular. "We weren't expecting any deliveries today," he frowned, and his voice was the lazy rumble of thunder too far away to be concerned about.  
  
"Just as well, I'm not making any. Is there a Val working here? He said to meet him at this address."  
  
Gnarled grey eyebrows bounced in a smooth and symmetrical face. "Ah. You must be Mr. Greyweir. Please follow me. I hope you will excuse my confusion, but Master Valgaav's visitors generally present themselves at the front door."  
  
"Master--? What do you mean, front door?"  
  
"May I take your cloak, sir?"  
  
"No. Who are you?"  
  
It considered, and smiled with a touch of fang. "The badly defined focal point of someone's faith. That's my idol on the door, or perhaps it should more accurately be called a fetish."  
  
He considered fainting, decided against it. "Val lives in this house and his butler's a god?"  
  
"A very small god, sir. Very personal. If my priestess ever manages to convert anyone to my worship, my status may improve."  
  
"Is that likely to happen?"  
  
"No," he admitted. "I'm afraid she isn't the sort to inspire others to total confidence in her sanity. But it's not so bad, working for the Rubyeyes, sir. The Head Tort--er--er, Head Cook is a true genius, and the family is... full of interest."  
  
"That's okay," he said. "I know Val's family are mazoku. I've got some ether in my veins myself. I mean, look at me."  
  
"Ah, but no one knows better than I how deceptive appearances can be, sir. In my last incarnation, I was Lightbearer, Phoenix Prince of Illusion. So full-hearted was my worship that my priests didn't even allow themselves to speak my name or realize that my temple was more than an ordinary place of learning. And who knows? She is mortal. I may be restored to such glory in my next incarnation. I can wait. The tides of the Sea of Chaos wash us where they please."  
  
"Tell me about it. Well good luck. --Wait a minute! The Rubyeyes? As in, Shabranigdo Rubyeye? Those Rubyeyes? Val is one of Those Rubyeyes?" Backing up, he bumped into the bronze statue of a sinister looking chicken at the foot of the stairs, and started forward again, rubbing his injured posterior.  
  
The butler's lips smoothly repressed a smile. "I'm afraid so, sir."  
  
Zel considered. His final, impressed conclusion was, "Damn."  
  
The butler was leading him to the highly impressive staircase when the equally impressive front door swung open. The ash-blonde woman who staggered through would have been blindingly beautiful if she hadn't been lurching, hung over, and bleeding profusely from the face. She swayed to a stop more or less in front of the butler, and took a long drag from her ebony-handled cigarette holder. It didn't have a cigarette in it. "Zoemelguster," she declared, white smoke seeping from between smeared, pearly-lavender lips. She winced minutely, as though her voice hurt her head, but she wasn't going to show weakness in front of the servants. "Why is there a wolf in the library?"  
  
"You rode it in there, Miss Zelas."  
  
"Oh." She scowled in thought, and touched a long, tapering, scarlet fingernail to one of the six slashes on her cheeks. "Is that what happened to my face?"  
  
"I'm afraid so, Miss."  
  
"Oh." The moment of thought repeated itself, painfully. "Is it morning?"  
  
"I'm afraid so, Miss."  
  
"I'd better change for church, then. Have Anne send up a headache glass and my grey suit."  
  
"It seems a terrible waste of a headache, Miss Zelas."  
  
"No one asked you," she snapped half-heartedly, and lurched off parallel to the staircase. "I'll want a drink in my room after church."  
  
"Did she miss?" Zel asked, fascinated.  
  
"Miss what, sir?"  
  
"The stairs."  
  
"Oh, no, sir. Miss Zelas has merely opted to take the elevator."  
  
"Elevator?!"  
  
Just then, his long, sensitive ears caught a swish from behind him, and two bare heels clocked him with cheerful abandon on the back of his head. "It's my bitch!" Val sang happily and, as he turned around, descended on him and swallowed his tongue.  
  
"Glph!" was Zel's first reaction, but he had learned to expect this sort of thing from his love, and as soon as his adrenaline subsided, he was more than happy to cooperate.  
  
By the time Val acknowledged his regrettable human need for oxygen, they were on a black leather loveseat in a rather brothel-like sitting room on the second floor.  
  
"I'm not your bitch," Zel said, calmly and reasonably, as soon as he had his breath back.  
  
"Either way," Val shrugged.  
  
"As long as that's understood."  
  
A few minutes later, they had separated again, mostly because Zel needed to express the extent to which he was overwhelmed. "Val?"  
  
"N?"  
  
"You didn't tell me you lived in a vampire's mansion."  
  
"You mean Renfield? The wolf groomer? Yeah, I guess he lives here."  
  
"I mean this house."  
  
Val craned his long neck up. "Oh. Yeah, it is kind of a mausoleum, isn't it." He looked eminently himself, wearing sweatpants and an unfastened red silk vest that went perfectly with the gilt-traced walls but warred with his spiky teal hair in an abysmal fashion that Zel found endearing.  
  
"It's very big." Zel relied on Val's knowing his tendency to profoundly understatement matters.  
  
"Yup. It's no big deal, is it? I mean, I live here. It's just where I live."  
  
"Your butler is a minor deity."  
  
"He irons the newspaper just like Daddy likes it, and Sis says he makes a good alligator-egg-in-Worcestershire-sauce."  
  
"You have statues from Old Sairaag in your front hall."  
  
"Good, aren't they? We used to have one from Zephilia, but Sis broke it."  
  
"Val, you're related to Shabranigdo Rubyeye."  
  
"Oh, Grandad?"  
  
"Yes!"  
  
"Well, technically," he pointed out with casual reasonability, "so are you. I mean your grandfather was one of his Shards. It's practically the same thing."  
  
"Okay," he said slowly, trying to reconcile himself to the situation.  
  
"Oh, stop sulking!" Val exclaimed, and kissed him enthusiastically . The importance of setting receded until he could have been on stage in a brightly-lit strip joint and wouldn't have cared. Much.  
  
"Okay," Zel said when he was flushed and dazed and trying to regain some control over the situation, "it's not that I give a damn about what your last name is or where your family lives. It's just that you misrepresented yourself on Mipross."  
  
"We only had a week," Val explained, leaning back. "I was kind of rushed for time. Would you have asked me to marry you in six days if you'd known that my family's the primary source of dark power in this world?"  
  
"No," he confessed, and grinned. "I would have asked you in two."  
  
Val laughed, and descended on him yet again. "You're peculiar," he said, separating. "It's funny to hear it talked about."  
  
"What, power? Why, is it sacred?"  
  
"Well... I just get the feeling you aren't pleased."  
  
Zel scoffed. "Wasn't I pleased when I found out you could put your feet behind your neck while standing on your forehead?"  
  
"Oh," Val leered, "weren't you just. So power's a personal quirk, is it?"  
  
"And a very nice one, at that."  
  
"It'll be yours, too, you know." They had found out days ago that the horn was useful for sweeping wire hair away.  
  
"No," Zel said, this time not being swept. "No, thank you. I'm still mostly human, and that's not likely to change."  
  
"So was that guy over the fire," he said, jerking a thumb to a portrait over the mantle. "That's Grandfather Shabranigdo--Lei Magnus, in mortal life. He started out as a mere black sorcerer."  
  
"I'm a shamanist."  
  
Val bit his nose. Around it, rather indistinctly, he growled, "What mortal has done, mortal can do." Letting go, he slid off Zel's lap, and drew him up by the hands. "Now, I've got to go to church."  
  
"I just got here," Zel pointed out. "And why is a mazoku going to church?"  
  
"It's my half-brother's congregation. He's not really one of the family, but we always go to support him for Mother's sake, may-she-rest-in-peace."  
  
"May-she-rest-in-peace."  
  
"Or not. She was pretty lively. Anyway, I have to go because I'll be telling my father then. You can take a tour of the island; Zoemelguster will give you insect repellant and wolfsbane."  
  
Zel's nonexistent eyebrows drew closer together, or at least the rocks around his eyes did. "In church?"  
  
"He can't talk then," Val explained as though it were meant to be obvious.  
  
The corner of Zel's blue lips twitched. "Scared?"  
  
"Nah, Daddy's a pussycat. This is the best way, that's all. Just make sure you're back by one; Daddy hates people to be late, and your first impression is very important. And for mayhem's sake, do something about getting a sword. And that hair..."  
  
Daddy? Zel thought. Instead, he asked, "When I make my appearance at one o'clock sharp-exactly-on-the-dot, should it be on my hands and knees?" Val scowled at him, and flexed his chest possibly without meaning to, and told him not to joke. "Why not?" he asked. "Why should we let the fun go out of it?"  
  
Val shot him a withering amber-eyed sneer. "It's not like it's going to."  
  
"True," Zel conceded, trying to tame his inappropriate, although doubtlessly intended, reaction to that look. "But why tell him so soon?"  
  
This next glare was more confused than anything else. "Well, I have to tell Daddy, Zel. He'd never forgive me if I didn't."  
  
"Sure, eventually." This line didn't seem to be helping his case any, so he conceded, "All right. If that's what you want. But wouldn't it be satisfying to just keep it to ourselves a while?  
  
Now one glorious golden eye was wider than the other, and the teal brow above it was soaring high on bewildered skepticism. "I don't see what fun that'd be."  
  
"Don't you?" Zel asked, a little wistfully.  
  
"No," Val said definitely, turned on his heal, and stepped into the elevator. Zel joined him, and they stood there disconsolately for a minute. Zel's arms were crossed, flinty thumbs tucked under his elbows, and Val's own thumbs had been shoved spitefully into his belt, eight shapely fingers dangling free.  
  
Neither of them made a move for the panel with the buttons. Finally, Zel loosened his scowl enough to speak. "It's getting complicated," he growled, almost under his breath.  
  
"You didn't think it'd be easy, did you?" Val muttered sullenly. Zel's mouth twisted agreement, which Val may or may not have caught, because a moment later, he seethed, "What's the matter with you, anyway?"  
  
[end part three]  
  
Important Notes: This story is not only based but riveted into the cement of an absolutely marvelous movie called 'Holiday,' starring Katherine Hepburn and Cary Grant, played respectively in this fic by Xel and Zel. If you haven't seen it (and most of you probably haven't; it's not even as well known as 'Philadelphia Story, gloom), please, please, make an effort to! This is a black and white movie! It's from the time when movies were about the acting and the scripts, and not about disguising the lack of either with splashy special effects! Go see it, go! You'll also better appreciate my artistry if you do (wink). 


	3. Of Elevators and Grey Sheep

Disclaimer and notes: see first chapter  
  
^w^ ^w^ ^w^ ^w^  
  
Holiday  
  
by Nightfall Rising  
  
part three  
  
^w^ ^w^ ^w^ ^w^  
  
If Lina or even Sylphiel had asked him that, he would have shrugged or laughed it off, but this wasn't Lina, and it wasn't even Sylphiel. This was Val, who he was planning to marry for an unratable variety of excellent reasons, most of which would have turned him a fine rose blush if he'd ever attempted to put them into words. He mulled over them for a moment, and then the answer obligingly pushed itself through his embarrassed teeth. "It's just," he burst out, "it's just that I hate doing things deliberately. I detest the thought of sitting down with someone and being practical about you."  
  
Slitted yellow eyes jerked to him, and widened, and went a softer amber. Shapely thumbs slipped up, and the hands they were attached to slid around his neck, and they were just standing there, cheek to stony cheek. Zel reached out, briefly detaching his arm from Val's back, and pressed the button for the hall floor.  
  
It was a very nice elevator. The ride was smooth, the ceiling was upholstered, the gate was bronze, the walls were marble, the momentum was slowing, the doors were opening.  
  
"Oh, my!"  
  
Partly out of embarrassment, and partly out of sheer astonishment that he'd actually heard someone--a man, yet--say 'oh, my,' Zel disentangled himself and looked at the speaker.  
  
The intruder was shorter than Val, maybe even a little shorter than him, with straight hair framing very finely drawn features like a violet theater curtain. From the way he held himself, a supple s-curve, Zel might almost have mistaken him for a woman, if his beautifully tailored suit hadn't fit so snugly about his broad chest and slim hips. He would have been the picture of elegance, if his face hadn't been bunch-cheeked and dimpled, with half-moon eyes and a tiny, crooked smile.  
  
"Foul fiend," he accused melodramatically, "release my brother."  
  
Zel was all ready to get offended when he remembered that he was talking to a mazoku, for whom the words 'foul fiend' probably translated into 'good puppy.' Good-naturedly, he let his hands fall.  
  
"Why Valgaav," he scolded on, with a friendly, acknowledging nod at Zel's hands, "for shame, brother! Is this any way to spend a worship-day morning?"  
  
Val, to Zel's enchantment, blushed.  
  
The short and cheeky man had relaxed, his piece said and his point taken, into nosiness. "Anyone I know?"  
  
"Gah," Val said, flustered. "My brother, Xellos Rubyeye, Zel. Xel, this is Zelgadis Greyweir."  
  
"Hullo, Mr. Rubyeye," Xellos said, nodding affably.  
  
"Delighted, Mr. Greyweir," Zel returned, amused. He wondered whether Val would bother to think up more differentiated nicknames before or even after the wedding. He doubted it. It was far more likely that he had just participated in the birthing of a running gag.  
  
"I'm going to marry him," Val mentioned proudly.  
  
A fine purple eyebrow lifted. "Oh," Xellos drawled, backing up and starting to close the doors in front of him with distinction worthy of the butler. "That makes it aaall right, then."  
  
"In about a week, Xellos!"  
  
The doors swung open again, rather faster, and a pearl-blue glove shot in, grabbed Zel's arm, and extracted his granite weight from the elevator without apparent difficulty. Tugged off balance, he went, and Val followed anxiously. "Come into the light and let me look at you, Redeye," the glove's owner demanded belatedly, and Zel was treated to a purple once- over, lightning-swift and just as intense, that made something stir uneasily in his stomach. Xellos finished with him and turned to Val, hurt. "But I've never seen him before!"  
  
"Neither had I," Val agreed smugly, "until last week at Mipross."  
  
His brother clasped gloved hands together (Zel, who still hadn't entirely gotten over 'Daddy,' was beginning to wonder what was up with this family and effeminacy), and creeled, "Telltelltelltelltell!"  
  
Val closed the elevator doors and leaned against them, radiating self- satisfaction from each of his many exposed muscles. "Well," he said, enjoying himself. "I was going over to the dock, when I see this chimera walking back with a pair of ice-skates. He had a funny look on his face--"  
  
"I can believe that," Xellos drawled, peering up behind Zel's concealing lavender fringe with a droll expression. Zel resisted the temptation to bite him in a friendly manner. After all, although Xellos seemed likely to take it the right way, Val wouldn't. Xellos seemed to read something of that instinct in his face, and his eyes crinkled up into quarter-moons before he retreated.  
  
"Actually, it was his nose that caught my attention."  
  
The organ in question was duly poked.  
  
"I pointed out to him that it was frozen, and he asked if there was anything that I, personally, could do about it."  
  
"Fresh," Xellos tsked disapprovingly.  
  
Val was more than happy to agree. Eyes wide, he began, "No sh--"  
  
"Well," Zel defended himself, "it sounded like a pickup line."  
  
"Hell," Val chuckled, attaching himself to Zel's arm, "I ain't blind."  
  
Xellos smirked, but then a thought pulled his supple posture straight. His voice lost its playful quality, becoming oddly formal. "Does Father know?"  
  
"Nah, I'm telling him at Church. Look, I gotta go put a shirt and pants on."  
  
"After the wedding," Zel lamented, "we're really going to have to discuss this regrettable habit of yours of standing around in the hallways stark naked."  
  
"Good luck," Xellos said, shaking his sleek head solemnly. "We've been trying for years." Val bunched up his vest and hurled it at them, and walked into a room down the hall, bare to the waist. Zel attempted not to drool, with some success. Xellos regarded him with amusement for a moment, then slipped his hands into his pockets and lounged. "I hope you know what you're getting yourself in for."  
  
"I didn't know I was marrying into a house with a bronze statue of a chicken," Zel returned.  
  
"Oh, that's Tiiba. He's a distant relative. His ghost's in the laundry room, so it's very important to keep him happy."  
  
"The place is haunted, too?"  
  
"Of course it is! All sorts of horrible ghosts, with stuffed shirts and humahide bicycle shorts."  
  
A corner of Zel's mouth lifted in spite of him, in appalled respect. "Skeletons in the closet?"  
  
"What, didn't Valgaav tell you about Grandfather?" Zel shook a head, and Xellos crooked a confiding finger, inviting him closer. "Earned ninety-two merit badges out of a possible hundred and twenty with the Drake Scouts."  
  
"No!"  
  
"Yes! And he didn't tell you about me? I'm the grey sheep of the family."  
  
"Maaaaa," Zel bleated politely, since it was always considered good manners to address someone in their native language.  
  
Xellos frowned at him, disappointed. "That's a goat."  
  
Val, coming back in a pine-shadow green suit over a shirt like bright flame, eyed them suspiciously. Zel turned to him in high displeasure. "I'm sorry, Val, the engagement's off. I won't marry into a family with a grey sheep."  
  
"Valgaav," Xellos grinned, decisively sticking out a hand for Zel to shake, "I think I like this man."  
  
"Hullo," Zel smiled back, shaking the offered glove before Val rolled his eyes tolerantly and hauled him away by the elbow. It came out a little sweeter than he had meant it to.  
  
[end part three]  
  
Important Notes: This story is not only based but riveted into the cement of an absolutely marvelous movie called 'Holiday,' starring Katherine Hepburn and Cary Grant, played respectively in this fic by Xel and Zel. If you haven't seen it (and most of you probably haven't; it's not even as well known as 'Philadelphia Story, gloom), please, please, make an effort to! This is a black and white movie! It's from the time when movies were about the acting and the scripts, and not about disguising the lack of either with splashy special effects! Go see it, go! You'll also better appreciate my artistry if you do (wink). 


	4. What's the Matter With Kids Today?

Disclaimer: see previous chapter  
  
Notes: I'm not dead! I'm getting better! I think I'll go for a walk... Two chapters, in apology for the long hiatus. Review responses at the back of the second.  
  
^w^ ^w^ ^w^ ^w^  
  
Holiday  
  
by Nightfall Rising  
  
part four  
  
^w^ ^w^ ^w^ ^w^  
  
It really was a lovely church.  
  
Services were held in the Mt. Kataaaart cathedral, which would have been the Mt. Kataart cathedral if the stonemason hadn't had a fight with both his wife and his mistress that morning. A real effort had been made to make the marble pillars supporting the arching ceiling resemble trees skirting a forest path, which was just as well. In another setting, the profusion of brightly colored hats every Sunday morning would have been tacky, to say the least. In amongst the 'trees,' however, they seemed to belong, like a bold, blanketing undergrowth of blossoms. The deep, serene rolling of the Reverend Ceiphied Aquaflare didn't exactly sound like birdsong, but neither did it seem out of place.  
  
Strange though it might seem to laymen, church was actually one of any mazoku's favorite places to be. Feeding on negative emanations as they did, the combined guilt, shame, boredom, restlessness, and irritation of several hundred people trapped in a hall together for hours at a time to be lectured at by someone most of them respected was a delightfully sweet midmorning snack, made piquant by some people's genuine reverence, peacefulness, and admiration for the preacher. Furthermore, it was usually all fairly low-level, so that nobody's appetite was spoiled for a late lunch at one.  
  
Of course, it did mean they had to listen to the sermons. But that was easy to tune out, and besides, the music was always good. Aquaflare's cathedral attracted the best choirs, and its acoustics swallowed most of the congregational flaws.  
  
They did not, however, swallow disrespectful whispers from the congregation. In fact, they amplified them so that the speaker could know who hadn't been paying attention. Reverend Aquaflare was a nice guy, usually, but he had learned a few things from the family his mother had married into.  
  
Which was why even said family was careful to keep a respectful silence during the sermons. His temper tantrums were legendary. A stirring epic ballad had been written about that little disagreement with his stepgrandfather Lei over whether the eight-year-old Ceiphied got to have dessert one night after obdurately refusing to eat his supper, and the author had barely exaggerated at all. They'd been having Ghia monster sweetbreads, that night.  
  
Which was why Val made sure to slip into the vestry before services and explain the situation. The last thing he wanted was the wrath of Ceiphied coming down on his head, but his step-brother was a notorious romantic, and had a quiet sense of humor. Let in on the joke, he could be counted upon to cooperate.  
  
It was, therefore, with less courage than fearlessness that Val turned to his father and whispered, "Mipross was lovely, Daddy."  
  
His father, who chose to honor his wife's memory by coming to her son's services every week, but whom nobody was ever going to pry out of his trenchcoat even with a crowbar, nodded his great, shaggy head, and lifted an enormous finger to long lips.  
  
"I met a guy there--he's coming to lunch today. Zel Greyweir."  
  
Zelas deplored him with a sad, slow shake of her head, as shaggy as her father's but cream-blonde instead of red. It was difficult to tell whether she moved slowly out of genuine moral upliftedness or the urgent desire not to pull her bandages.  
  
"I'm gonna marry him, Daddy," Val whispered.  
  
"What?!" Gaav exploded  
  
Ceiphied paused, and looked down at him with ill favor. Heads turned. Val settled back in his seat, using his horn for halo support. Gaav shut up until his stepson called for the collection to be sent round. Then he leaned over to ineffectively pester his teal-headed son, not noticing the collection hat, until Zelas, for the first time in her life, claimed the honor of being first in the church to rise with dignity from the pew, open her gilt-edged hymnal and lovely lavender-painted lips, and begin to sing.  
  
[end part four]  
  
Important Notes: This story is not only based but riveted into the cement of an absolutely marvelous movie called 'Holiday,' starring Katherine Hepburn and Cary Grant, played respectively in this fic by Xellos Metallium and Zelgadis Greywhatever. If you haven't seen it (and most of you probably haven't; it's not even as well known as 'Philadelphia Story, gloom), please, please, make an effort to! This is a black and white movie! It's from the time when movies were about the acting and the scripts, and not about disguising the lack of either with splashy special effects! Go see it, go! 


	5. A Tranquil SkyBlue, with Grey Bits

Disclaimer: see some other chapter  
  
Notes: I think this is a better chapter than the last one. But what can I do? I have a script to follow! Anyway, it's longer for your patience.  
  
^w^ ^w^ ^w^ ^w^  
  
Holiday  
  
by Nightfall Rising  
  
part five  
  
^w^ ^w^ ^w^ ^w^  
  
When Zel knocked again, it was at the front door, and he was gripping a large, half-cowed wolf by the scruff of the neck. He'd tried to ditch it several times, but it had kept on turning around to jump him again, so he'd finally grabbed hold of it and towed it along behind him. He handed it off to the spooky butler and asked, "Is Val back?"  
  
"Master Valgaav has not yet returned from church, sir," Zoelmelguster said, holding the wolf firmly by the ruff with complete equinamity. "Master Xellos expects you in the crypt."  
  
"Oh. Master Xellos, huh. --The crypt?"  
  
"The basement level, sir." Zoamelguster indicated the elevator  
  
"Uh, has Master Xellos eaten yet?" he asked warily.  
  
"Most amusing, sir."  
  
"Ahaha. No, really."  
  
"Sir is an invited guest here. Such a breach of hospitality would be draconic."  
  
"Oh. Okay."  
  
"Besides which, sir, the dungeon is on the sub basement level."  
  
"Oh, fine," he said, relieved, and headed for the elevator. "The crypt. Right."  
  
It let him out at what was definitely a crypt. The walls were rough grey stone, hung with torches girded in black iron. There was even a window looking out on a system of roots, as though to prove that the chamber was really underground. Good grief, he thought to himself scornfully, but it was false bravado.  
  
He walked for a bit, and all of a sudden he realized that his boots had stopped ringing on the stone floor. He looked down, and saw that he was walking on a crocheted carpet, with enormous shaggy flowers in psychedelic colors picked out on a silly fuscia background. He blinked, and his lips started to draw up. He cupped his hands around his mouth and hollered, "Hey!"  
  
"Hey, yourself," Xellos yelled back. He followed the voice and found his host draped on an uncomplicated wooden doorframe, munching on a brownie, which he held out for Zel to take a bite of. Zel inclined his head and bit. Then, when the mocha chips hit his tongue, he retreated greedily, with the rest of the brownie between his teeth. Xellos raised a perplexed eyebrow, but let him pass into he room.  
  
"Oh," he said, in altered tones. "This is quite different."  
  
There was a working fireplace, and armchairs and a sofa and a coffee table, and two walls that were shelves, packed with books, folders, scrolls, and a few other things. The other wall showcased a large dog-bed, a veiled easel, and an enormous rolled-up exercise mat. The sofa was a comfortable affair of pale leather in the middle of the room, with the coffee table between it and the stove, and behind it was a cabinet of drawers. There was a lap desk propped up next to one of the armchairs, and a little writing table next to it, and a set of exercise bars and hanging rings off to the side of the room, near the unshelved wall.  
  
The carpet was extremely thick, and a green color that hinted at late summer grass, and the walls in this room were planks of knotted blond wood, with dark trim, and the bookcases glowed with a dark, ruddy finish. The general effect was somewhat confused, but there was no confusion about the room's coziness. This was clearly the heart of the house.  
  
"It was Mother's idea," Xellos said from behind him. He'd closed the door and was leaning on it. He'd also stolen the brownie back while Zel was rubbernecking, and was munching on it again. "She said there should always be at least one room in a house where life could happen."  
  
Zel moved around the bookshelves, quietly taking in the titles. There were some military and supernatural thrillers, but the vast majority of the books were historical texts, philosophical tracts, cookbooks, and political treateases, with the fictional genre solidly represented by most of what were largely agreed upon to be the world's best, mostly in first edition and all in leather-bound hardback. The thrillers were the only trashy- looking items, and they were also the only dusty ones. They were, however, carefully ordered by author and subject, whereas the other books were arranged in no order whatsoever that Zel could make out.  
  
His exposed eye drifted happily across Kouma Sensou: A Causative Analysis, A Toast to the Roast, and Everyday Life on the Post-War Continent (v3: Zephilia under the Knight) before it landed on a plushie of a pineapple in neon green and yellow, and flew open in shock.  
  
"That was Val's," Xellos said, sauntering over and offering up the last bite of brownie. "He used to love that thing. Slept with it. Took it to church, even."  
  
"It looks just like him," Zel chuckled, touching the bushy leaves sprouting from the top, and chomped. Ah, mocha goodness. And cotton gloves. Oops.  
  
Xellos graciously ignored the attack on his fingers. "My sister made us all things like that in the brief period during which Father succeeded in making her act her gender. It lasted about two months. Grandfather got a lobster."  
  
"Was this his, too?" he smirked, touching the bedraggled electric-pink teddy bear next to it.  
  
"Don't you mock Blushy," Xellos warned, snatching it up and cuddling it with an amused pout. "He's very sensitive."  
  
"Yours," Zel assumed.  
  
"Looks like me," Xellos said wryly, squinching up his face again to match the bear's little grin, and tilting his head backwards to let straight hair slide away from the perfectly, humanly round ears laid flat against his head. They had attached lobes and cute little Darwin's points. The left one had the same ruby stud Val wore, but it was attatched by a fall of thin gold chains to a spiraling earcuff, and had the oval of a shadow-boxed wolf's paw falling down from it.  
  
When Zel came to think of it, Xellos was the most human-looking mazoku he'd seen so far. Val had that horn, and the gravity defying hair, and he'd seen a hint of fangs behind Zelas's lipstick, and a movement around her fingertips that suggested retractable nails--to say nothing of the butler. There was usually something wrong with them--some off detail. Their skin color was usually a little off, for one thing. Val was nicely tanned, but the green ichor that was his blood made him look a little like a palm tree, and Zelas's skin was so unnaturally creamy as to indicate that she had disregarded the whole blood idea altogether. Zel himself was a tranquil sky- blue, with grey bits.  
  
Xellos's skin wasn't off. He was pale, (not unhealthily so) in a luminous kind of way, but not enough to be vampiric, and the faint blush he hadn't drawn attention to at the elevator had been charming, understated, and apparently involontary.  
  
He realized that it might be taken as slightly odd of him to be examining his future brother-in-law's skin tone, and said, "I think I've seen your sister. All in ivory, with a hangover and the marks of rough handling by lupines?"  
  
"That was Zelas," he sighed. "She could have been a real maestro at animal handling if..."  
  
"If?"  
  
"If Father hadn't interfered," he said grimly.  
  
"Oh." They observed what seemed to be the requisite moment of silence. "Did she make herself a plushy?"  
  
"No, just the dog bed. But she lets me use it, too. It's very comfortable. At times."  
  
"Does Val get to use it?" he asked with playful sternness, defending his beloved's rights.  
  
Xellos laughed. "Valgaav? Mayhem, no. He'd never fit. He takes after Father, you see," he felt the need to explain. "He's a dracanthrope."  
  
Zel blinked, stared, opened his mouth, paused, closed it again, and went to look at the uneven bars.  
  
"We all used those," Xellos said, moving up close behind him, "although I'm the only one who's kept it up. Zelas runs with the pack, and Father takes Val to skirmishes, so they don't need the exercise."  
  
"He doesn't take you?"  
  
"Um. Not anymore." He looked embarrassed and then, at Zel's puzzled look, seemed to feel the need to defend himself, or possibly his father. "Well, he took me once, but I got a little... uh, overexcited, and Father--well, Father has a very particular style when he goes about this sort of thing, and I kind of ruined it for him, even though I didn't actually do badly, mind you, but I spoiled it for him, and that was that. Even though I've learned better by now." He sighed. "I've promised him I have, and he nods like he believes me, but then nothing happens."  
  
"I'm sorry?"  
  
"Well," he chuckled, brightening up, "it's not like I actually mind being stuck with the excercise equipment. My beloved siblings," he explained wickedly, "are both much too tall to use them now. Last time Val tried, he got his horn caught and cracked his chin. And I just like the moving, you know?"  
  
"Yeah," Zel agreed, liking him.  
  
"I miss when we all used to crawl all over them, though," he reminisced. "Zelas and I used to hang from the rings upside down and play clapping games. And oh, speaking of hanging upside down." He grinned evenly, showing a plethora of very white teeth without a fang in sight. "There's this cousin of ours--I'm afraid you'll have to meet him at some point; it's inevitable--we used to swing from the rings and shoot things at each other. Peas and arrows and fireballs, and like that. I'm happy now to say," he finished virtuously, "that I rarely missed."  
  
Zel smiled, and his eye was caught by a glint of firelight on a gold picture frame on one of the shelves. He moved to it, and picked it up. It was a tiny little Val, who seemed to have been stuffed by main force into a tiny little kendo outfit and was glowering at the camera. He hadn't gotten his horn yet, but his hair was still bright teal and inclined to spike. "Aw, look at that," he said, and Xellos obligingly came up behind him. "He was cute even then."  
  
All of a sudden, he found himself facing the other way, Xellos's glove tight on his arm. "Zel," Xellos frowned at him earnestly, "do you love my brother?"  
  
[end part five]  
  
Hysteria82: (grins) Sadly, it has to be a little OOC, due to the nature of the beast. I regret this; ooc usually annoys me, too. I'm glad you're enjoying it anyway. And *nobody's* seen the movie. This is my whole point. It needs to be watched and loved and adored. Kyra2 is a kind entity, and shall be rewarded with more hysterical Xellos. Or, well, bipolar, anyway. Fragile Reflection: The story's about half-written so far. There are many completed chapters yet to be posted. And thank you, thank you, thank you for telling me someone's still interested.  
  
And finally, Xellas, where are you? (is mournful and concerned) Don't be dead, please.  
  
Important Notes: This story is not only based but riveted into the cement of an absolutely marvelous movie called 'Holiday,' starring Katherine Hepburn and Cary Grant, played respectively in this fic by Xellos Metallium and Zelgadis Greywhatever. If you haven't seen it (and most of you probably haven't; it's not even as well known as 'Philadelphia Story, gloom), please, please, make an effort to! This is a black and white movie! It's from the time when movies were about the acting and the scripts, and not about disguising the lack of either with splashy special effects! Go see it, go! 


	6. Wings, for a While

Disclaimer: see some other chapter  
  
Notes: I was originally going to split this chapter in two, but I decided to make it longer instead. After all, Zel admitting what he wants out of life isn't much of a cliffhanger, since everyone already knows what it is.  
  
Please review!  
  
^w^ ^w^ ^w^ ^w^  
  
Holiday  
  
by Nightfall Rising  
  
part six  
  
^w^ ^w^ ^w^ ^w^  
  
"Zel," Xellos frowned at him earnestly, "do you love my brother?"  
  
Zel gave him a funny look. "Of course I do." What kind of question was that?  
  
"He's so intense, and driven."  
  
"He certainly is."  
  
"It makes him vulnerable. To--well, things. It's very important that he should marry the right person."  
  
Zel smiled, perplexed. "Well, that's important for everyone, isn't it?"  
  
"No," he continued to frown, "it's more important for Val." He suddenly fixed Zel with a piercing, assessing stare. "You're an odd duck, Greyweir, you know that, don't you? Where have you been?"  
  
"Oh, traveling. I've been on the road since I--well, this," he grimaced, gesturing at himself and moving away. Lina and Sylphiel had helped him to learn to live with his skin affliction. He didn't obsess over it twenty- four-seven anymore, but it still made him uncomfortable when he thought about it--especially when the subject came up while he had to look at normal-looking people. "Taking any work I could get, studying at any library that'd let me in." He found himself in front of the covered easel, and asked, "Does Val paint?"  
  
"Oh, no," Xellos warned, scrambling between him and the object of his curiosity. "There lies Xellos the cartographer. Don't disturb the ashes."  
  
"You were that bad?"  
  
Xellos shrugged, uncomfortable with giving an answer. "Only according to traditional theory."  
  
Blinking, he confessed, "Sorry, I'm not up on cartological tradition."  
  
"Well, there are two ways of making maps. You can draw them in geological or political proportion."  
  
"And your father's of the other school?"  
  
"Well, I'm sorry," he groused, "but the fact is that Sailoon is a big city, and this is actually quite a small island. Just don't expose the canvas; I'm afraid it'll fall apart if the air hits it. It's awfully brittle; it, uh, got a little scorched."  
  
Zel looked at him. He wanted to ask, did you ever try another one? But the answer was obvious. The map was enshrined in the heart of the house. Who would bring a treasure into the world just to be be killed or become a lie? Instead he asked, "Where have you been?" But Xellos was just looking blankly at the drape over the easel, with a face utterly clean of emotion. "Hey," Zel said, touching his sleeve. "Don't I get to ask questions, too?"  
  
"Oh." With a slow blink, he shook himself mutedly, and pulled himself out of it. "Well... here."  
  
"No, really."  
  
He got a slanted, puzzled smile for his efforts. "You really want to know?"  
  
"Sure."  
  
"Well--those." He gestured with a weak smile at the numerous stacks of manuscript on the shelves. "Father won't hear of my publishing them, of course, but it's nice to do good work, even if nobody's going to see it. And I thought--well, before Mother died I thought I might become a chef-- what?"  
  
"Nothing," Zel sniggered.  
  
"I'll have you know that Master Gio at Madame Anne's Institute of Culinary Education thought I showed great promise," Xellos said, caught between a haughty sniff and a rueful sigh. "But then I got pulled out. Then there were a number of," he coughed, and twisted his mouth wryly, "humorous episodes. I nearly got arrested in a demonstration for Greenpeace in Sailoon, once."  
  
"Nearly? How'd you get out of it?"  
  
"Hah," he said. "As though I wanted to. In retrospect, it was my own carelessness. I really should have checked first to make sure the whaling company in question wasn't one of Father's."  
  
"Oh."  
  
"Oh," he repeated mockingly. "Just don't ask me about the little incident with the Sequoias."  
  
"Not on a first date," Zel assured him solemnly, and he laughed.  
  
"He did let me be a counselor at this magic and nature camp in Sairaag for a few years," Xellos allowed, "until he said I was getting too old for it. I suppose my mistake was always letting him distract me. I've never been sure, you see, whether I wanted to be a philosopher, a taxidermist, a master-chef, a tactician or an historian."  
  
"An evil historian?"  
  
He chuckled evilly. "An evil gossiping historian? Sure, that could be fun. Either way, he's used that. He says a mazoku should be out fighting, and I don't mind that, I would have been a Sun Tzu for him, I would be, but he won't let me come!"  
  
"Fed up?" he asked sympathetically. Xellos just sighed expressively, and dove into the sofa, burying his head under the cushions. It looked rather peculiar with the rest of his beautifully tailored self hanging out limply, like a panting dog's tongue.  
  
"At least you have some compensation," Zel offered, looking around the room. "They do say that even if money can't buy happiness--"  
  
"It does make misery comfortable? Pinkeye," Xellos's dry voice came, filtering muffled out of the pillows, "I haven't been able to get my hands on any lithium for the last five years, and since then I've been quietly developing a mild case of domatophobia**, just like a good little wolf-boy should. Compared to the life I lead, the last man in a chain-gang thoroughly enjoys himself."  
  
"You should take a vacation." When Xellos choked disbelievingly, he fumbled, "you know, from what you've been doing day-in-day-out."  
  
"Days in, please," Xellos groaned, slithering bonelessly onto the floor and sprawling there like a rag doll with no regard for his nice clothes, "years out." He lifted his lolling head to fix Zel with a lazy, speculative look. "How do your skeletons hang, Greyweir? Do the roses smell pretty where you live?"  
  
"They can," he hedged. He was thinking of Lina and Sylphiel and the adventures they had had, but also of long nights standing watch in the middle of nowhere in the freezing dead hours, and of hotel receptionists and librarians who insisted on seeing his face and then screamed and denied him entrance, and of not being able to swim anymore, or ice skate (Mipross had proven that), or cut his hair properly, and bathing with heavy-grade sandpaper and of beds and chairs called 'solid' that collapsed out from under him if he moved carelessly.  
  
"But they don't?"  
  
"It's no kind of a life," he bit off, touching the lumpy grey rocks where he'd never wanted a beard, or even had the chance to shave one away.  
  
"And what will you do about 'it', O man of action?"  
  
Zel shot him a glance, but although the words were goading, he was just sitting there, hugging a pillow with his eyes closed and looking interested--even sympathetic. He dropped down next to him, sprawling across the floor in front of the sofa, making a sudden decision to test his intentions out on Xellos. After all, if Xellos was able to understand him, than the marvelous creature that was his Val would, too.  
  
Well, of course Val would. Naturally. But it would be nice to see what Xellos thought, regardless. "I've got an expedition coming back from the Kataart Mountains. I've had a pigeon from them with a message--you know it sounds when somebody's refusing to tell you what your birthday present is?"  
  
"I know how I sound," Xellos commented, hooking his chin over the pillow. "Nobody in this family really appreciates the value of a good surprise. Not even Zelas. It's no fun at all."  
  
"Well, it read like that."  
  
"And what do you think they've brought you?" he grinned, drumming his fingers on the floor in anticipation.  
  
"A way to get back to normal," he said fervently. "To be full-human again."  
  
Xellos was frowning--thoughtfully, not in condemnation. "I've been wondering about that," he said. "How did you end up such a mess in the first place?"  
  
"You know how in the movies, every so often you come across somebody's who's a really sweet old geezer in ordinary life, but when you put them in the same room with a test tube they leave all notions of sanity and morality at the door?"  
  
"Yeah?"  
  
"That's my grandfather."  
  
"Oh." He chuckled sympathetically.  
  
"He's pretty harmless, most of the time--he's one of the best healers around, actually, one of the leading names in magical sensory and limb replacement and body augmentation--but when he gets going with one of his experiments, he has difficulty telling the difference between the guinea pig and his lab assistant."  
  
"Ouch," Xellos winced, chuckling again.  
  
"In fairness, he is blind. Sometimes he really does just point at the wrong side of the room. I had wings for a while, back when I was a kid," Zel offered, smiling. "That was fun, although they got in the way, and all they really did was add some control to my Levitation spells. This is less fun, and I want it gone."  
  
"What will you do?"  
  
"I don't know yet," he shrugged, leaning against the couch and letting his smile widen into an expectant grin. "Just about any magic-lab would be glad to have me, I think--or any thief's guild." Xellos grinned back at him, wickedly. "Gods know I've had to learn to walk quietly, for one thing. Or if I found out I wanted a quiet life, I might open a coffee shop. I've got connections from here to Zefilia, the way I drink the stuff. And if I got tired of that, well, I used to be damn good on a guitar, before I started ripping the strings."  
  
"But what if you get tired of being human?"  
  
"Hah!"  
  
"No, really, safeguards are good things. What if?"  
  
He shrugged. "Grandfather never takes notes."  
  
"Oh, dear.."  
  
"He lets his lab assistants do it."  
  
"Oh. And that's you."  
  
"And I'm meticulous. In that highly unlikely event, he could do it again. Anyway, it's what I was born to, I have to give it a shot. I don't mind losing the extra protection; I never traveled by choice, only to get rid of it, anyway. And I got so bitter about it the first few years, I forgot who I am. I'm better now, but... I want to see people reacting to me, not this artificial armor. I want to be known, the real me, and to get to know myself again, who I am now, who I can be. Does that make sense?"  
  
"A lot of sense," Xellos said, unhesitating, his crossed arms supporting his head on the sofa cushions, smiling at him affectionately. "Does Valgaav know?"  
  
"Nah," he shrugged. "I don't want to raise his hopes until I know it's going to work out. I've got to know I can contribute my share, afterwards."  
  
"Well, you know he's got resources enough for the both of you," Xellos started.  
  
Zel shook a negating hand in the air. "No, I want to contribute, I don't want to live off him--oh, I'll tell you something funny," he smiled. "This morning I thought I was going to end up supporting all of you."  
  
Xellos chuckled obligingly. "But you wouldn't let him do it?"  
  
"Why, when I can?"  
  
He shrugged impishly. "Might be fun. Might make sense, too, until you're sure you have your feet."  
  
"Yeah, but... no."  
  
"That's pride," Xellos cautioned him, lifting a warning finger. Lowering it, though, and stretching out the hand for Zel to shake, he nodded approvingly. "You're all right, though, Greyweir. You're not hooked yet."  
  
"Hooked?" he asked blankly.  
  
"Bitten," he elaborated, "by the Domination Disorder."  
  
"The what?" he snerked.  
  
"The Mastery Malady! The Control Cupidity. In a word or five, Master Greyweir, the addiction which is powah." He waggled his eyebrows, something between menace and naughty suggestion.  
  
Zel burst out laughing. Briefly. When he was done, he waved a hand and said, "No, no, no, no thank you. That's what got me into this mess."  
  
"Oh, yeah?"  
  
He started to explain what his grandfather had been researching, but in the middle of it, the door opened.  
  
Zelas Rubyeye strode in angrily, swinging her hips like James T. Kirk on a busy day. She planted her fists on them, possibly just to improve the impression, and demanded, "Who took that bottle of ale out of my wardrobe?"  
  
"I don't know," Xellos said, uninterested, and scrabbled up to perch on the arm of the sofa. "What happened in church?"  
  
"It was that good blue kind, from the Crossover Shop, and you know what they charge. I hadn't even opened it yet, and there was a full quart there! Are you sure you don't know who took it? It was in my dom boots."  
  
Zel staring at her, felt the heat rise in his cheeks.  
  
"Oh, Zelly, shut up," Xellos sighed, embarrassed for her. "No one wants to hear about your hobbies. Come on, did Val tell father?"  
  
"Hah!" she barked softly, apparently distracted, and began to peer around with interest, drawn into the room. "I haven't been in here in ages."  
  
"What did Father say?" her brother demanded, out of patience.  
  
"Huh? Oh, I left him talking to Mr. Rodimus after church."  
  
"He's my backer for that expedition I was telling you about," Zel explained.  
  
Zelas turned to look at him. Her eyes were less sulfurous than amber, now that she was sober, and her resemblance to Val was clearer. "Oh, is this the cat, then?"  
  
"And he's a good kitty, yes he is." This sentence began as a stout avowal, and ended in baby talk as Xellos wrapped himself around Zel's shoulders and started to scratch him behind the ears. It was a good trick, the more so since his gloves weren't in tatters afterwards.  
  
"Get off, you," he said without heat or any effect, and stood to offer his hand. "I'm Zel Greyweir."  
  
"Zelas Rubyeye," she said, shaking it absently, and let go just as absently to wander off. "Gad, it's creepy in here. How can you stand it, Xel? I could get some redecorators in."  
  
"Only if you want me to take them outside," Xellos returned amiably.  
  
"Whatever." She was rustling through the set of drawers behind the couch, and came out holding a fife. "Hey, does this still work?"  
  
"I polish it up and charge it and clean the spiders out every year or so," Xellos said. "I thought you might like to pull Fuzzface or Scaly out of retirement someday."  
  
"Sure," she scoffed, "Why not." She opened another drawer, pulled out a speakerphone, and pressed a button. "Zoemelguster, send Jormungand**--no, wait, we have a visitor, don't we? Send Fuzzface to the crypt."  
  
^w^ ^w^ ^w^ ^w^  
  
[end part six]  
  
**Domatophobia: the fear of being in a house [www .phobialist. com]  
  
**Jormungand: better known as the Midgard Serpent of Norse Mythology. One of the children of Loki the trickster god, along with Hela, who looks after the unfortunate dead who don't make it to Valhalla, and Fenris, the great wolf who has a good deal to do with the apocalypse Ragnarok.  
  
FragileReflection, you're so good for my ego! Don't worry, there's still most of the movie to go. Kyra2. if you read more carefully, you'll notice that I never said he looked *perfectly* human, only that he did the best impression Zel had ever seen, and I haven't even mentioned his eyes yet. As for his teeth, I don't know where you're getting this from. He's almost the only Slayer who never, ever sprouts fangs, even around Filia. Perhaps you're making the mistake of confusing their back teeth for pointy canines? I used to do that. It's not hard to do.  
  
Important Notes: This story is not only based but riveted into the cement of an absolutely marvelous movie called 'Holiday,' starring Katherine Hepburn and Cary Grant, played respectively in this fic by Xellos Metallium and Zelgadis Greywhatever. If you haven't seen it (and most of you probably haven't; it's not even as well known as 'Philadelphia Story, gloom), please, please, make an effort to! This is a black and white movie! It's from the time when movies were about the acting and the scripts, and not about disguising the lack of either with splashy special effects! Go see it, go! 


	7. Prospects, Preparations, and Puppies

Disclaimer: see some other chapter  
  
Notes: Wow! I got a couple of very thoughtful reviews this time! Responses at bottom.  
  
Please review!  
  
^w^ ^w^ ^w^ ^w^  
  
Holiday  
  
by Nightfall Rising  
  
part seven  
  
^w^ ^w^ ^w^ ^w^  
  
'Fuzzface' was as tall as Zel, at the shoulder. He had red eyes, fangs as long as Zel's palm and bristling black fur, and they called him Fenris to his face. Zelas was a little smaller when she transformed, and Xellos was only the size of a highly-developed regular wolf, but by working in tandem they had the giant showing his neck in four action-charged minutes.  
  
She made a striking canine, a ghostly silver-white with mad green eyes. Xellos was... well, he would have been imposing among regular wolves, but in this kind of company he looked more like a pretty, playful Husky. He had the kind of coat that would let him blend into a tundra almost as easily as a forest, a tail that wouldn't quit, and the feline-slitted lavender eyes gave him a really bizarre fey look. Even more so than usual.  
  
They were all playing with a frisbee Xellos had nosed open the drawer to and whined pathetically at when Val breezed in with a kiss for Zel, a wave for his siblings, a perplexed look at Fenris, and an expletive for the world in general.  
  
"Was church deadly?" Xellos asked sympathetically as soon as he had a mouth instead of a snout again. He appeared to have forgotten about the suit jacket he had been wearing, and was casually resplendent in white shirtsleeves and a sleeveless sweater with a green and grey escher pattern. Zel considered himself very thoughtful for noticing, given the unusual but tasty tailored perfection of his boyfriend. Zelas had changed back, too, but she'd remembered all her clothes.  
  
"Church? Nah. Uncle Ceiphied's good to have on your side. We're in for some rough sailing, though," Val said, slipping an arm around Zel and leaning in for a nuzzle while Xellos closed one eye, made a hook out of a hand, and chuckled, 'Arr."  
  
"What kind?" Zel asked.  
  
Val turned to answer him, stopped, looked, and made a dismayed face. "Zel! You didn't get a sword! And your hair..."  
  
"No, that's right," Zel agreed, unperturbed, as Val tried and failed to primp at him. "I didn't."  
  
"Oh," Val sighed, making a disappointed face at Xellos, which Xellos mirrored right back at him. "Well, we'll have to find you one." Xellos tsked, and started to adjust the fall of Zel's cape, brush lint off his shoulder, and poke at his hair.  
  
"Will you two cut that out?" he asked, annoyed. "I feel like a goat being led out for slaughter." Xellos leaned over and baaed in his ear. "Now, that's a sheep," he said, pointing an accusing finger.  
  
"What you need is a drink," Zelas advised, from her giant furry futon.  
  
"What you need is a coach," Xellos corrected brightly, himself flopping onto one of Fenris's enormous paws.  
  
"I'd be grateful," he said to either or both of them, arranging himself carefully on the couch.  
  
"First things first," Zelas said, not moving to procure any liquid. "How are you fixed for money?"  
  
"Zelly," Val growled.  
  
"Now, now," Xellos tsked, and turned to Zel, explaining, "You wouldn't expect it of a man in Father's comfortable position, but power is our gawd here, and money is certainly its best supporting deity."  
  
Zel took off his money-pouch and peered into it. "I have," he announced, "Two gold, about ten silver, a bunch of coppers, and a couple of coupons for the Mipross Hot Springs and Sauna."  
  
"Can I have the sauna one?" Zelas asked, interested.  
  
But Xellos had clasped his hands together in horror. "Whaaaat?" he exclaimed. "No orihalcon statues with emerald eyes? No deeds to vast silver-mines manned by hundreds of miserable, toiling peasants? No dragon- flesh and esoteric-parts farms?"  
  
"Would you get your mind off food?" Val demanded irritably as Zel rooted through his pouch. "Lunch is in only half an hour, for crying out loud."  
  
Xellos stuck out his tongue briefly, then stuck his thumbs through his belt and rocked back on his heels. "I'm afraid he won't do, Val. Oh, he's a comely boy--"  
  
"Comely?" Zel laughed, startled, handing Zelas the coupon. 'Rugged' was about the best he thought he was entitled to.  
  
"--but probably just another of the vast army of tuppence-ha'penny mercenary barbarians."  
  
"Bar, bar, bar," Zel couldn't resist agreeing.  
  
"Now that is..." Xellos paused, planted his elbows on the back of the white sofa, rested his chin in them thoughtfully as he looked for an alternative to 'barbarian,' and triumphantly finished, "a law student!"  
  
"What about socially, then?" Zelas asked. "With skin like that, you must be some relation to Dynast or Dolphin."  
  
"Nothing there, either, I'm afraid," Zel said cheerfully, "except a crackpot old white healer grandfather who carried the Shard for a while."  
  
The full mazoku looked at each other and winced. "Er... better not bring up the quack," Val cautioned, fingering his horn resentfully. "White magic, after all, and not reliable, you know."  
  
"You really aren't?" Zelas asked, with what would have been disbelieving surprise on a less well-bred young lady. "Not even some lagoon monster or brau demon or something?"  
  
"Brau demon was a component, but it's all artificial, Miss Rubyeye."  
  
"You mean your mother wasn't even a kraken?" Xellos mourned, full of sorrowful disappointment.  
  
"Not even a lake dragon, I'm afraid." he agreed, the corner of his mouth twitching.  
  
"Oh, stop it," Val scowled.  
  
"No, but this is terrible!" Xellos exclaimed in concerned earnest, pushing off the sofa-back for emphasis. "Do you realize, young man, that you're trying to marry into the highest echelons of the Mazoku hierarchy?  
  
"It's a stickler," Zel agreed gravely. "Well, in situations like this, I always ask myself what the Hammer of Justice would do. And then I do the opposite."  
  
Val snerked. "You could always run up the walls," he suggested.  
  
Xellos lit from within. "Can you really run up the walls," he gushed, "can you really? You've got to teach me! I can do anything else. Show us! Oh, it'll be a pity if this doesn't come off," he announced to Val, "a real pity!" After a moment, he added wryly, meaning the demonstration, "It'll be a pity if this doesn't come off, too."  
  
Zel was about to push off the floor when the door rang. This was a surprise, since in his experience it was mostly outside doors that had buzzers, but he was prepared to ignore it and proceed. He was bracing himself again when Val caught his cape. "Hey, but what about the--"  
  
"No!" Val chided. "Zelly, take him away; us guys'll talk to Daddy first."  
  
Zel folded his arms, unimpressed with the phrasing. "And why should I leave? I haven't even shown your brother--"  
  
"Um, 'cuz, you're not supposed to be here yet? You're supposed to get here at one, remember? Zelly will tell you when to come down. And do something about that hair!"  
  
"This is all getting very delicate, if you ask me," Zel grumbled.  
  
"Nobody did ask you, so vanish," Val said firmly, but minimized his offense by biting Zel's tongue in an affectionate manner.  
  
Zelas gagged, wheeled around, and exited, grabbing Zel's cape and a cowed Fenris's ruff on the way out and dragging them with her, bump-bumping down the stairs like Edward Bear and leaving a trail of slightly chipped stairs behind. As they left, Val yelled after them, "Lend him a sword, Zelly!"  
  
***  
  
"So, you like him?" Val asked Xellos a few minutes later, as they meandered down the sweeping staircase.  
  
"Oh, my, oh, my, oh my my my my dearest dear," Xellos gushed. "Val, do you realize a breeze swept into this stuffy old mausoleum with that boy? Don't you let him get away!"  
  
"It's same old, same old, of course," Val noted fatalistically. "It's the money and the power, just like always."  
  
"Don't forget the horn."  
  
"Oh, right, and the horn. But it's mostly the power. I mean, you should see him drool when I flex."  
  
Xellos's mouth pursed minutely as he stared at Val for a moment from between apparently sealed lashes. "...That's always flattering," he concluded finally, with neutrality, and went on with the cynical optimism which Val was more accustomed to receiving from him. "After all, what's all this wealth of accumulation for if not to secure for us a really superior type of mate?"  
  
"Bleah," Val said, disgusted. "I don't usually mind when people are vulgar- -"  
  
"Dread Lord forbid," Xellos agreed dryly.  
  
"--But it's different when you do it, somehow."  
  
"Less scatological, as a general rule," his brother laughed. "No, but seriously. Here we all are, rotting where we sit--this is your chance, Val!"  
  
"I know!" he said happily. "I know Daddy'll agree with me when I've explained it properly. I've just got to show him that Zel has all of Grandfather's qualities."  
  
"...He does?"  
  
Val growled happily.  
  
"...And you want to marry him?"  
  
"You are the most disrespectful little freak I know. Hells, yeah. Ambition, determination, ruthlessness--you don't know how far he's already come."  
  
"Or where he's going," Xellos suggested with a secret smile.  
  
"I do." Val sighed like a hormonal schoolgirl. "I can see it, bright as candles."  
  
"Val," Xellos started, excited, "would you--well, first, if Father says yes, when will you be announcing it?"  
  
"Yesterday," answered Val with admirable promptness.  
  
Xellos pounced, dragging him down to sit on the steps by the vest lapels. "You'll let me give the announcement party, won't you? Let's keep Father's straitlaced ideas out of it. You know I'm good at planning occasions--if he does it, it'll be all black suits with crimson embroidery and enormous holes cut out of them and bits of people on toothpicks, without any imagination--let's have some fun for once!"  
  
"Well... if Daddy doesn't mind."  
  
"Come on, Val, don't be a pompous goody-two-shoes, it doesn't suit you. Don't you see? Just intimate and openhanded, like a hopeful thing should be--just your friends and Zel's. Something in the study with penguins, maybe. We could take them out on the grounds for a hunt afterwards--a scavenger hunt if any of them--the guests, I mean, not the penguins--are human, and if there's anyone Father wants to get rid of it would be a great opportunity! And Zelly could get everyone drunk and we could play strip Twister or some kind of truth-or-dare and get loads of blackmail material, you know Father would love that.. Let me do something for you for once. Please?"  
  
Laughing, Val agreed, "That'd be a hell of a time."  
  
"I mean it, Vally," Xellos said coyly, in the happy voice that his family had learned to fear. "Don't let anybody touch this party, will you? If they do--why, I just won't come, that's all!" He beamed.  
  
Val regarded him affectionately. There weren't many people in the world who could effectively threaten him, and Xellos managed to do it with an admirable panache. Xellos had even managed his way around Gaav, once or twice. He was a truly manipulative little stinker. "I'm really going to miss you," he said, punching his brother lightly in the shoulder, and meant it.  
  
"I don't know what I'll do without you, either," Xellos said, the stubborn malice underneath his cheerful grin turning depressed and his closed eyes screwing up even tighter. "Die. Of stultification, I suspect. I've got to get out. Soon. If I'm not mad yet, I'm getting there post-haste," he muttered, mostly to himself. The grin never wavered, but Val didn't expect it to. "I could curl up and die right now."  
  
Val punched him in the nose. Hard. "Cut it out, you spooky freak," he said calmly.  
  
Xellos casually reset his nose and grinned again without undertones, the pain having restored them both. "Cut what out, Vally-boy?" Val made a retching noise, and Xellos laughed again. "No, don't worry about me, just look out for yourself." He stood up, stretched, and slid the rest of the way downstairs on the elegant, sweeping banister. Val followed suit.  
  
Stopping downstairs at the door to their father's study, Xellos took Val's shoulders in his hands, opened his eyes to meet his brother's gravely, and commanded, "Don't let him bully you."  
  
With great affection and greater force, Val slapped his brother in the face and went in.  
  
^w^ ^w^ ^w^ ^w^  
  
[end part seven]  
  
Ukchana, I'm flattered and honored, but girl, we have to introduce you to some of the *good* writers--if you're interested, since I know it's not exactly your OTP. Xellas and ShoSen, in particular, are good at staying IC. This is a movie fusion, so I'm afraid they're going to be ooc, but when it's over (which may take a while) I'm going to start posting Fill the Gutters With Gold, which is only AU in it's backstory and therefore much, much more IC. There's something I'm curious about, though. You said you didn't see them as gay in the series, but Zel and Gourry are all over each other. I'd certainly agree that they aren't flaming, but then, they have a different culture than we do. Why should they be? Especially given the names Xellos gets called just for being soft-spoken and showing attraction. Ouch. Anyway, you keep up the good work, too. Looking forward to your next chapter! ^_^  
  
Fragile Reflection--I swear, you get up earlier than I do. I'm staring blearily at my email one morning and it dings at me with wonderful ego- bolstering stuff! Sankyuu!  
  
Kaeru Shisho: To your second, thanks for the support. To your first, I know you have; I read some of it when I was an evil ungrateful lurker. You have a lot of imagination and you're a terrific worldbuilder. I'm thrilled that someone's seen the movie! It's soooo good. I like banter... I like Val sometimes, too, but not in this fic. Sorry, he gets no love. ;^P  
  
The Usual Disclaimer: This story is not only based but riveted into the cement of an absolutely marvelous movie called 'Holiday,' starring Katherine Hepburn and Cary Grant, played respectively in this fic by Xellos Metallium and Zelgadis Greywhatever. If you haven't seen it (and most of you probably haven't; it's not even as well known as 'Philadelphia Story,' gloom), please, please, make an effort to! This is a black and white movie! It's from the time when movies were about the acting and the scripts, and not about disguising the lack of either with splashy special effects! Go see it, go! 


	8. Favoritism in Crayola

Disclaimer: see some other chapter  
  
Thanks to SilverThorn the Thoughtful, ChaosDaughter the Very Encouraging, and Fragile Reflection the Extremely Enthusiastic for reviewing. Special thanks to Kaeru Shisho, who not only reviews but does it in detail! Glad you're enjoying Val--there's more of him in this section.  
  
I'll post two chapters today, as an apology for taking forever. It's just that I'm doing less Slayers in general lately. First of all, Saiyuki and FAKE are eating my brain, and secondly, there seems to be such a huge amount of canon-pairing and het being posted on ffnet that I'm feeling discouraged. Maybe I need to join a mailing list or something. Any civilized lists around?  
  
Please review!  
  
^w^ ^w^ ^w^ ^w^  
  
Holiday  
  
by Nightfall Rising  
  
part eight  
  
^w^ ^w^ ^w^ ^w^  
  
Gaav's 'study' had thirty-six torches and five roaring fireplaces, one of which was campfire shaped and in the center of the enormous room. The furs on the floor were all walked out, and were due to be changed soon. In an effort at civilization, the ears and shrunken heads had been neatly arranged and labeled on a curiosity shelf against one wall, in the only place where the very masculine tapestries weren't.  
  
The hundreds of larger heads on the walls (mostly animal) all had little placards under them (in handwriting and spelling that got better about halfway from the door and even eventually stopped being in crayon). These said things like, "i Kilded ths Ellyfint All bi miself and Cuk sedd she can Yuz the boddy and Zely wnned the Skinn for a jakket but I wanned YU to hav .the Hedd, Dady!"  
  
The throne was seated in resplendent glory between two of the fireplaces. It was solid gold and studded with rubies, with plush, blood-red cushions. It also had a red pad down the back for lumbar support, with a discrete control panel on it that plugged into the wall and had three settings each for heat and vibration.  
  
On one side of it was a bloody enormous globe with a lapis lazuli ocean, sapphire lakes and rivers, and land masses in precious metals and semiprecious stones, with raised mountains capped by diamond where necessary. There were little post-it notes all over it, saying things like 'Zephilia--Knight. Avoid 10 yrs? 90?' and 'slums--recruit?' It lacked, however, lines of any sort defining political demarcations.  
  
On the other side was a table with a head-sized tankard of something brown and frothy, a ruby and citrine-encrusted notebook, a neatly ironed newspaper, and two photo albums. The three booklike things all had orangey- yellow leather covers.  
  
There was a couch in front of the throne, less comfortably upholstered in a slightly scaly black leather that glistened like an oil slick. Nobody but Val would sit on it directly, and Gaav had told him once, in exasperation, to go buy a throw to put over it for his pansy siblings. The throw had been in stripes of violent aqua and scarlet until Xellos had sneaked away with it on the sly and thrown it to the wolves. Now it was more or less tattered, but the stripes were infinitely more tolerable in the weary new browns.  
  
It was Val's favorite room in the entire manse.  
  
"Morning, Daddy," he said, draping his elbows over the arm of the throne so as to provide his father with access to his forehead (the horn went up, not out).  
  
Gaav only grunted, but did bend to plant a noncommittal kiss on the offered area.  
  
Ignoring the offered message (that he was not out of favor but would do well not to bring up the subject which was currently irritating his father), Val pressed, "Did you see Mr. Rodimus?"  
  
"We had a chat," Gaav rumbled. "But before I look at the boy's work record, his background must be taken into consideration."  
  
"What did he say?" Val asked impatiently. "I wanna get married next Wednesday."  
  
Scowling down at his son instead of choking, Gaav censured him, "What I say is not to be impulsive. I see that your brother is having a bad influence on you."  
  
"Usually," Xellos said cheerfully, and hopped lightly down from the moose head nobody had noticed him sitting on. Zelas took the opportunity to separate herself from the shadows of Gaav's throne while everyone was gaping and/or snarling at her little brother. Unrepentant, they moved with a similar casual lack of shame to sit on the ratty brown throw and smile, Zelas modestly and Xellos like a cheeky urchin, at their father.  
  
Having learned long ago not to bother twitching at the antics of his older children, Gaav ignored them and repeated his position. "Next Wednesday is out of the question."  
  
"Why?" Xellos asked. Bored, Zelas snapped her fingers, and the newspaper blinked off the table and appeared in her lap. She turned to the sports section and settled into the couch, crossing her legs elegantly above the knee.  
  
"I hate those engagements that just drag on and on," Val put in.  
  
"He steals brownies," Xellos offered in triumph, as though it were a closing argument.  
  
Gaav looked at him, and didn't pinch the bridge of his nose. "You know this boy?"  
  
"I've heard of him," Xellos covered quickly. "Something of a rational rogue, they say. But I suppose it's strength you're after. I understand he's got that too. Twenty stone and ruthless, and something of a shamanistic powerhouse. Not to mention pretty."  
  
After permitting himself the luxury of staring at his son in just one more moment of blankness than was really necessary, Gaav asked, "Zelas. Do you have the front page?"  
  
"I try to take Sundays off, when possible," Zelas said without moving her eyes from the page.  
  
Discipline clearly being called for, Gaav stated, "That reminds me. I want to you to stay in the situation room until dawn from now on."  
  
Now her eyes jerked up. "But there's nothing for me to do after two- thirty."  
  
"You'll find something."  
  
"But--You can't expect me to make work like a mere--"  
  
"Did you understand me?"  
  
Growling in her throat, Zelas subsided, and retreated haughtily behind her newspaper.  
  
Impatient again, Val demanded, "What did that Rodimus man say?"  
  
With a nearly undetectable sigh, Gaav grudged, "A fair report."  
  
"Poor Father," Xellos mocked from under a very thin veneer of sympathy.  
  
Continuing to ignore his middle child, Gaav went on, "He has behaved well in some few skirmishes, and seems to have some organizational ability. He has an expedition out to the Kataart Mountains which was by all accounts well planned out."  
  
"The Kataarts?" Zelas asked, surfacing for a moment. "Poor man."  
  
"Smart man, perhaps," Gaav judged cautiously. "His envoy, being an idealistic young human female, may well succeed with the dragons where our minions and hirelings have failed. The prospects for a recovered Manuscript are less abysmal than usual. It might be worth a small investment. See to it in the morning, Zelas. But the first thing is to know something about this Mr. Blackbeard's background."  
  
"Greyweir, Daddy," Val corrected.  
  
"No, no, Vally," Xellos hastened to chide him, "if Father wants to remember him as Blackbeard, by all means, let us paint the stones on his chinny-chin- chin jetty onyx. Blackbeard has such a traditional, rascally sound, after all."  
  
Val rolled his eyes and said, "He's from Atlas City, Daddy."  
  
"I'm sure there was some mad scientist Greyw--mph!"  
  
Eyeing the couch, where his son had innocently and implacably plastered a pearly-gloved hand over his daughter's impeccable lipstick, Gaav ponderously declared, "Knowing merely a name and a hometown is worthless. Let him find me alone when he comes. I will conduct the interrogation along my own lines. I will not, of course, allow the subject of an engagement to come up in our first talk."  
  
Earnestly, Xellos asked, "Wouldn't you like me to hide in the moose and take shorthand notes?"  
  
Gaav was so pleased to see his son actually trying to be helpful for once that his snapped, "Unnecessary," was almost indulgent.  
  
"Well," Xellos tutted, "I do think the poor man should see one friendly face under fire."  
  
The boy was impossible.  
  
^w^ ^w^ ^w^ ^w^  
  
[end part eight] 


	9. The Chimera Could Give You Indigestion

Disclaimer: see some other chapter.  
  
Notes: In which the question of Zel's fitness to marry into the legion of Eeeevil is settled. Next post--let the games begin. ^________^  
  
^w^ ^w^ ^w^ ^w^  
  
Holiday  
  
by Nightfall Rising  
  
part nine  
  
^w^ ^w^ ^w^ ^w^  
  
The doors creaked open, and the butler appeared, saying, "Mr. Greyweir wishes to be announced."  
  
"You all have things to do," Gaav ordered. "Decide what they are and go do them."  
  
As his elder children looked at one another in annoyance, Val pushed up a little and quietly said, "Just remember, Daddy; I know what I'm after." Gaav spared him a smile, and then his youngest was halfway to the door and swaggering as a rather peculiar specimen came through.  
  
"I hope I'm not late," the specimen said in a hushed and somewhat nasal voice. "My dragon got caught in a crosswind."  
  
His hair looked like it.  
  
When Valgaav had finished introducing the chimera around (Xellos had an oddly whimsical air as he bowed over the boy's hand, but then, when didn't he?), Gaav subtly hinted, "Zelas, if you and your brothers will attend to that vital matter you were speaking of, I will speak with Mr. Greyweir."  
  
"Right away, Daddy," Valgaav said, tugging Zelas out by the arm.  
  
Before the door closed behind her, Zelas drawled, "I'm sure we would all die of ennui without vital matters to attend to."  
  
Gaav smirked with satisfaction at the obedience of his children, turned to face the chimera, and realized that Xellos was sprawled all over the couch and turning to the crossword. He scowled. "You have something to do," he said.  
  
"Who, me? Can't think of a thing," Xellos chirped sweetly, and plucked a pen out of the air.  
  
The chimera was smiling at Xellos as though he had expected such behavior. Gaav scowled further, then wiped his face more or less clean and turned to face his son's intended. "We're having very warm weather for the time of year," he said gruffly. "It hasn't snowed yet."  
  
"I like snow," Greyweir commented. "That's why I went to Mipross."  
  
For lack of anything better to say, and having the same sinking feeling he often got when his middle son was really determined to have something out, he said, "My son's just come back from there."  
  
"I know," the boy smirked.  
  
He scowled. Again. "Do you have business on the shore, Mr. Greyweir?"  
  
"In association with Mr. Rodimus," he explained.  
  
"I know him. An old Lyzeillian family."  
  
"Yes, sir. His family have been retainers to my family for years. But he has a better head for accounts than my grandfather, and more experience than I have--I'm twenty--so in this modern age he's become something of a senior partner at our lab. We're from Atlas City."  
  
"I used to know people in Atlas City. The Calverts?"  
  
"No; we don't have much of a draconian market."  
  
"Mr. Diol?"  
  
"I'm afraid not. Grandfather says he engages in clone-abuse and isn't nice to know."  
  
Gaav's eye narrowed. "The Xain organization? It's run by a Mr. Galev."  
  
"Taking over the world really isn't our line..."  
  
"Shutaindolf?"  
  
"Wasn't he a vampire? I think my History of Magic professor killed him. But I never met him personally."  
  
Twitch. "Zoom the assassin?"  
  
The boy sighed. "Mr. Rubyeye, my grandfather was a minor priest of Ceiphied who went around healing other blind people and accidentally causing small towns to blow up until they promoted him to the Great Shrine and set him to research to get him out of the way. He married an apothecary. My parents were bakers, and had both died of clogged arteries by the time I was twelve."  
  
"How sad," Gaav said, a little wistfully. He was always busy with grand- scale things like battlefields, and never got to taste any of the more delicate emotions. Although the cook was really good at pain, fear, despair, hatred, and the other good, solid plowman's fare that mazoku thrived on, he occasionally regretted a lifestyle that kept him away from desserts.  
  
"It was sad," Greyweir agreed, a little annoyed. That was nice. Not as tasty as sorrow, but still, good for a light snack. "Grandfather wasn't really able to support the lab, although of course the temple made sure we had enough to eat, so I started doing odd jobs when I wasn't helping him. A little busking and bar-work here and there, carrying people's bags from the coach platform or the market, some housebreaking. Things like that. I got a partial scholarship to the University of Sailoon. By that time, Grandfather had given Mr. Rodimus permission to run an expedition-planning and guiding company to supplement what he brought in through the lab, so I was able to earn the rest of my tuition working for him."  
  
"Very admirable," Gaav choked out. At least the housebreaking was respectable.  
  
"No, it was just the only job I could get. This had happened by then," he explained patiently, spreading his blue hands for inspection, "and there aren't a lot of humans willing to hire a twenty-stone blue demonic creature with hair that could shred the merchendise. Besides, there's a lot you can learn on the road that they don't teach in Sailoon. Was there anything else, sir?"  
  
Pulled out of faintly horrified gloom by the query, Gaav, who hadn't really been listening but prided himself on being more or less polite to the meat, said, "I beg your pardon?"  
  
"I should think!" Xellos said from the depths of the crossword, with great satisfaction and slow emphasis.  
  
The chimera spoke before he could torch his disrespectful offspring. "I said, was there anything else you wanted to know. No? Then do you give permission?"  
  
"To what?" he asked hopelessly. This was exactly why he tried to avoid prolonged conversation with Xellos. He always knew exactly where the conversation would end up, and there was never anything he could do about it.  
  
"To my marriage with Val."  
  
"Why, Mr. Greyweir," he sighed in resignation, slumped in his chair and seriously considering beating himself to death with the photo album, "this is a complete surprise to me. I don't know what to say."  
  
"I wouldn't mind if you said yes."  
  
Well, at least the kid had spirit, unlike his sly milksop of a son. And good taste. Letting out a "Haw!" and sitting up straighter, he said, "I'm sure you wouldn't. But I'm sure you understand that Valgaav's marriage is a matter I do not intend to take lightly, or to rush into. Some discrimination is called for."  
  
"I see that," the boy allowed, "but there's a difficulty. Val intends to get married next Wednesday, and I quite agree with him."  
  
"We'll see about that," he said grimly.  
  
"May I ask how we'll see, exactly?" Greyweir insisted.  
  
Not afraid to stand up to him, either. But this had gone on long enough, and negotiation was far from his strong point, anyway. Resorting to his habitual bluntness, he began, "I don't know you at all, Mr. Greyweir, and-- "  
  
"That's easily fixed," he interrupted stubbornly. "I'll give you every opportunity--after all, I'd like to get to know my future father-in-law, as well. How about lunch tomorrow?"  
  
"That's very short notice, Mr. Greyweir. Make it Saturday."  
  
"Oh, I'm going to be in Sairaag on business until next week. It had better be tomorrow."  
  
He waved a hand. "Discuss it with my butler." He sent out a silent general summons, and had as a result the satisfaction of making Xellos jerk like a landed fish and drop the newspaper. His other children appeared behind the door and came through it. He smiled benevolently again, was gratified by seeing the blue boy's eyes widen in momentarily ill-contained revulsion, and said, "Ah, Zelas, Valgaav. Is dinner ready?"  
  
The chimera looked at his watch in confusion, reinforcing his low-class background, and Xellos mouthed the word 'lunch' at him. Looking a little long-suffering, the boy pressed, "If you'd care to speak with Mr. Rodimus, I think he might have a few good things to say about me. I'm really very capable, and your son and I get on very well, which although not difficult in the least on my part is probably the best thing I can say for myself, except that I think we have an excellent chance of an excellent future together."  
  
"Me, too," agreed Valgaav who, having come up beside him during this speech, was snuggling him in a manner which rather annoyed his father.  
  
"You know you can't say no to Vally," Xellos insinuated. "You may as well get it over with and give in like a benevolent daddy-darlingest."  
  
Gaav looked at him, irritated. "Valgaav--all three of you, for that matter- -will be married on the day and to the persons I name, and the decision is much too important to be made lightly."  
  
"Persons?" Zelas asked, looking interested. "Plural?  
  
"But next Wednesday," Val pressed.  
  
"Next Wednesday is out of the question."  
  
Zoemelguster banged once on the massive doors, then appeared at Gaav's elbow and murmured, "Dinner is prepared," before discreetly vanishing.  
  
Blue boy stared at the place where he'd been, and started, "Does--"  
  
"Dinner, Mr. Blackbeard!" Gaav bellowed, whipping his head around to look at him.  
  
And something was wrong. Not only was the chimera sadly unintimidated, but there was something off about him. About his attire. What was it?  
  
"That's a very familiar looking hilt," he noted, a little off balance.  
  
"It's a very nice sword," the chimera agreed without the faintest hint of modesty.  
  
"Perhaps we share a swordsmith. I sometimes patronize--"  
  
"Oh, no, sir," the boy forestalled him, entirely unashamed. "The fact is," he said, pulling it out for inspection, "it's your sword. Zelas thought it would bring me luck."  
  
Gaav stared at him for a moment in pure disbelief, then let his head fall back and roared with laughter. He'd thought for decades that his family could use an injection of backbone.  
  
^w^ ^w^ ^w^ ^w^  
  
One of the advantages of having married an infinitesimal woman, Gaav reflected that evening when Valgaav had set down the jug of bloodwine the crossover shop sent over every week as tribute on the little table and clambered up, was that the children never got too big to sit on his lap.  
  
"I just saw Mr. Rodimus leave," his son said, pouring him a stein. If Val's hands lacked his brother's perfectly adept grace of motion and even his sister's casual elegance, they were guided by a willingness almost too fervent in its sincerity, and that was more than something, that was a great deal. "Have a good talk?"  
  
"Yes," Gaav said, and almost smiled, pleased to see a little persistency even in an unwelcome subject.  
  
"Well?"  
  
"You're too young for such a long step."  
  
Valgaav made a noise bordering on disrespectful. "Oh, come on, Daddy, you and Mother were younger than us when you got married."  
  
"Neither your mother nor I were contaminated by the blood of any lesser species. Or, I may say, any undesirable relations."  
  
"You only say that because you haven't seen him fight yet. He's nasty," Val confided with delicious approval, and added matter-of-factly, "Besides, if it doesn't work out I can always feed his heart to Zelly. But he'll do well. I know it."  
  
"That is unquestionable. Mr. Rodimus speaks well of his foresight and levelheadedness, and I have myself observed a mitigating talent for expediency."  
  
"Then it's okay?"  
  
Gaav looked at him for a moment. His wife's witty brevity did not come easily, and this was a difficult concept to express without offending his son on his boyfriend's behalf. "Do you see this?"  
  
"What, the bloodwine? Yeah...?"  
  
"My son perfected the recipe, subject to my approval. I know that when properly prepared it will be endowed with the correct flavor, texture, and consistency.  
  
"The fruit it is made with was picked in the orchards of villages I have conquered, under the supervision of a series of overseers who are owned by me. I know that this fruit was picked and used at the proper moment in its life, and transported and stored with care.  
  
"The blood used in it was drained by my soldiers from humans killed by them and selected by my daughter. I know that it will have been fresh and pure at the moment of its use, untainted by virus, bacterium, bile, or any other undesirable substance, preserved in such a manner that will not affect its flavor or substance, and transported and stored with due regard for its value.  
  
"It was made and bottled in a shop in whose founding company I hold controlling interest, and which I have ensured terrorized to the point of proper respect, and it is offered me as a tribute. I know that the clerks who prepare and ship it would not dare to offend me by offering inferior quality, and thus I know that it is prepared correctly, and therefore, that it will be of the proper flavor, texture, and consistency.  
  
"I have been drinking this wine for four hundred years. I know that I will enjoy it, and that it will burn smoothly and pleasantly. Above all, since it is tested by one most loyal to me, I know that it will never cause me a moment's indigestion, let alone poison me."  
  
"And you think Zel might give you indigestion?"  
  
Gaav frowned. "There's a spirit of interspecies cooperation running about the world today. Elves singing with humans. Humans eating with dragons. Dragons talking with Mazoku without so much as a smoking ruin of a city to show for it. This sort of harmony is disagreeable to me."  
  
"He'll burn, Daddy," Valgaav said comfortingly. "Smooth and sharp and hot."  
  
He scowled. "It's only your future I'm thinking of."  
  
"I know myself nearly as well as you do," Val assured him. "I know what I want."  
  
With a sigh, Gaav gave up. He nearly got strangled for his trouble, when Val squirmed around on his lap and glomped him, but that was all right.  
  
"Thank you! Can we announce it at Midwinter?"  
  
"I shall arrange a party," agreed his father, waving a large hand to show that his will would be done.  
  
"Oh, great!" With an uneasy glance at the heating grate, never used because fires were much more luxurious, Val said, "Oh, wait, damn. Xel said something about wanting to give a party." He leaned in close to his father's ear, and whispered, "One of his notions."  
  
From the uncomfortable look on Val's face, Gaav could guess what this party of his eldest's would look like if it were permitted to occur. He shuddered internally, and reassured his son, also in a whisper due to the hint of dark smoke behind the grate. "You and I know how to deal with Xellos's notions."  
  
"It was thoughtful of him..."  
  
"Your brother can be extremely thoughtful. In his own peculiar fashion." He raised his voice. "You may stop eavesdropping, Xellos."  
  
The pointy tip of smoke-like substance poured shamelessly out of the grate in a dark whirlwind. When it reached the floor, it coalesced into his son, who was, as usual, overexcited. "It's yes, then?" He bounced gleefully and without dignity on his toes, pulled a couple of glasses out of the air, tossed one carelessly to Valgaav, and dove for the jug.  
  
"Careful," cautioned Gaav. Since he was very hard put to it to be annoyed with one son's pleasure in the other's good fortune, it came out more benevolently than he would have preferred. "You'll spill my wine!"  
  
"What a shame that your mind should be occupied with such trivial details as beverages on a night like this!" Xellos scolded happily, but drank his glass anyway. "This is wonderful! Have you told Zel yet?"  
  
"Well, no," Val said, rolling his eyes. "Obviously."  
  
"Go call him right now!" He hauled Valgaav out of his father's lap by main force and started propelling him around the bonfire pits to the door. "Let's go hunt some dragons to celebrate! No, that's wrong, not for something like this... I know! Let's bring the trapeze up to the roof and turn on the lights and give everyone a show!"  
  
Over his shoulder, he called, "Mommy would be so proud of you, Father! She'd have loved him! And don't worry about the party, I've got it all planned out. No stuffed shirts, no black silk cloaks with red lining, no engraved invitations..."  
  
^w^ ^w^ ^w^ ^w^  
  
__________________________________________  
  
( (** Dark Lord Gaav Rubyeye, Chaos Dragon **) )  
  
( (** commands the tribute of your attendance **) )  
  
( (***** on the evening of the Long Night ******) )  
  
( (************ at 10:30 o'clock. ************) )  
  
(_(______________________________________)_)  
  
^w^ ^w^ ^w^ ^w^  
  
[end part nine] 


	10. The Butler is Untoastable

Disclaimer: see some other chapter.  
  
Notes: A longer chapter this time--sorry about the hiatus. Review responses below, as per usual.  
  
w w w w  
  
Holiday  
  
by Nightfall Rising  
  
part ten  
  
w w w w  
  
Zel tugged uneasily at his cloak. He'd looked in a mirror as they passed it (and what kind of house had mirrors at the top of the staircase, anyway?), and had confirmed with dismal resignation that his blue skin clashed horribly with the scarlet lining and the whole effect was emphasized by the shiny black exterior. Also, the butler had done something terrifyingly prim to his hair, which was making whiny metal groans in protest.  
  
He hadn't even been allowed to wear a white shirt. The blue suit he'd been bribed into had looked snazzy on the hanger, with its sparring black zebra stripes, but as he'd known it would, it made him look like he was wearing nothing but a few strategic straps, a pair of dress boots, and a tan. Indigo. Something.  
  
Val owed him big time for this.  
  
The mazoku in question (who, he grudgingly admitted, was dressed even more tastelessly than he was and was dealing with it with much better grace) flipped the front half of Zel's cape back over his shoulder, exposing the lining and the suit again. "Stop fussing. You look stunning."  
  
Since they were in public, Zel repressed all eighteen of the remarks which came into his mind in answer to this nonsense, and asked instead, "Where's your brother?"  
  
"Oh, he'll be down," Val said airily. As these were the words Zel had been expecting, he was surprised at how rehearsed and automatic they sounded. More naturally, and more anxiously, Val went on, "Of course he will. I'm sure he will." Zel looked at him funny, and he explained, "He hates big parties."  
  
"Not this one, though," Zel smiled, thinking of his biggest supporter.  
  
He was surprised to see Val's face freeze into a sort of rictus smile, and then his betrothed cried out, "Oh, look at Daddy. Look how happy he is. He's so excited." On hearing his name, Gaav, who did look marginally less grumpy than usual, turned and lifted a hand in greeting. Val draped himself over the banister and blew him a kiss. Having grown accustomed to this sort of filial affection of late, Zel didn't so much as widen his eyes. "He really likes you, you know. You've completely won him over."  
  
"He's been surprisingly decent to me," Zel admitted.  
  
"He put this party together all by himself," Val said proudly.  
  
Somehow, looking over the regimented slow dance of badly dressed demons, Zel wasn't surprised.  
  
Two of the badly dressed demons were looking back at him out of the corners of their eyes as they walked towards the stairs. Unabashedly, he stared at the large, frozen-faced ice-blond and the youth with the acid-green eyes sitting on his shoulders, and strained his long, elvin ears to tune them in.  
  
"Is that it?" Blond was asking.  
  
"At least it's ornamental," Acid-eyes leered, and then broke into a terrifyingly broad grin as they reached Gaav.  
  
"Those are our cousins," Val told Zel as greetings were exchanged. "The one who looks like Daddy fell into a vat of bleach is Dynast, and the twirp is Phibrizzo."  
  
"Quiet," Zel ordered, goosing him to make him shut up. "I'm eavesdropping."  
  
"When are you going to announce the thrilling news about little Valgaav?" Phibrizzo was asking with an innocently eager expression. His calling Val 'little' was ridiculous.  
  
"In my own good time," Gaav rumbled smugly. "It is to be a surprise."  
  
"Well," the little demon said with a tinge of doubt in his voice, sneaking a look upwards, "Valgaav -seems- infernally happy... I haven't seen Xellos all evening."  
  
"Oh," Gaav said, pretending not to look uncomfortable, "Xellos has asked me to explain his unfortunate bone-shattering migraine."  
  
"Oh, yes," Phibrizzo agreed, pretending not to sneer, "Xellos's little headaches. We understand perfectly."  
  
A little alarmed at this, Gaav hastened to assure them, "He'll come down before the announcement, of course."  
  
"Of course," Dynast echoed emptily. "Whose bones is he shattering? Are we having gelatin later?"  
  
"Er..."  
  
"Just leave it to us," Phibrizzo rescued him sunnily, and they turned away and started upstairs. "What's the matter with that boy--Oh, Mazenda, you look mind-bending! --I wonder where she found those hideous jodhpurs..."  
  
"Gaav's worried," Dynast uttered.  
  
The shorter one snorted. "I'd be worried, if I'd spawned Zelas and Xellos."  
  
"I disapprove of bringing an outsider in."  
  
"I'd expect it of Xellos," Phibrizzo agreed, "but Valgaav? Bringing a common chimera--a mere shamanist, too--into the family without even any real name!"  
  
"He has family in the White community," Dynast said with heavy condemnation, and Zel bit his lips to keep his face straight as the two hit the top of the stairs and Phibrizzo burst into another smile half the size of his head.  
  
"Oh, Vally, how lovely!" the youth said without specifying. He turned to Zel and said, with a definite note of patronization, "I'm Cousin Phibby, and I'm -so- happy about it. Oh, Vally, he is pretty, isn't he?"  
  
"Dynast," the other announced, putting out a hand.  
  
"Greyweir," Zel returned with equal brevity, taking it.  
  
"A good family to marry into, Greyweir," Dynast proclaimed. "You're to be congratulated."  
  
Fortunately, Zel had no eyebrows to raise at him.  
  
Noting the slight purse of blue lips, Val hastened to say, "We all grew up together."  
  
Zel bit down on the 'that's no excuse' that he really, really wanted to say.  
  
Equally hastily, Phibrizzo gushed, "We've heard such -wonderful- things about you."  
  
"Have you?" he asked with great courtesy and some interest. "From whom?"  
  
Flustered, the youth stammered, "Er... uh... everybody," and hastened to change the subject. "It's a pity about Xellos."  
  
"Frightful luck with those headaches," Dynast said, and Zel looked at him with more respect. He was clearly out of some loop here, but he could recognize a dig when he heard one, and he hadn't expected it from the icicle.  
  
"Oh, there's Zelas!" Valgaav said, and almost made it look natural. "We've been looking for her. 'Scuze us." He dragged Zel over to where Zelas was leaning on a potted plant with a flute of champagne in one hand and an enormous black cigar in the other. She was better dressed than almost anyone there, with a sleeveless ivory shirt on over a silkily heavy thigh- length skirt of the same color, and sandals that laced all the way up to her knees. "Zelly, did you talk to Xel?"  
  
"How do you find Dynast and Phibby, Greyweir?" Zelas drawled. "Are you honored to meet them?"  
  
"What did Xel say?" Val pressed.  
  
"Cheer up," Zelas urged lazily, with an elegant flick of one hand that sent smoke skittering into her brother's eyes. "If you find them bloody-minded and dull, wait 'till you meet the rest of the relatives. More you know about us, more impressively we rise. In your estimation. Father wanted a family, so Mother had me straight off to oblige him. But I was a girl, so Mother had Xellos, who took after her, so it seemed hopeless. Then Mother had Valgaav, and there was great joy resounding from the mountains. It was an obedient and devoted son, and the armies could be safely passed on. It must have been a great relief to Father. He must have been very grateful to Mother. Drink to Mother, Greyweir. She tried to be a Rubyeye for a while, and then gave up and died."  
  
"Nonsense," Zel said, almost gently.  
  
Gravely shaking her glass at him, Zelas uttered, "But it's ...not."  
  
"What did Xellos say?" Val asked again, impatiently. "He's coming down, isn't he?"  
  
Zelas choked on a mouthful of champagne and, recovering, said sharply, "Don't make me laugh, Brother."  
  
"What is all this about Xellos, Val?" Zel asked, torn between anxiety and exasperation.  
  
"Nothing," Val muttered.  
  
"Thaaaaat's right," Zelas agreed expansively, sloshing, "it's nothing at all, just one of Xellos's whims. The silly little puppy wanted to give his kind of a party." Honing her voice to a katana-edge, she went on, "Between you and Father, you've managed to turn his celebration into a first-class funeral."  
  
"He should've realized I couldn't announce my engagement quietly," Val snapped.  
  
"Should have?" Zelas asked in that slow, deliberate way. "Sure. But unlike me, Xellos always hopes. Mud in your eye," she said to Zel, "To Xellos."  
  
"Zelly," Val whined as she drained her glass, "You've been drinking since eight."  
  
"So I have," Zelas grinned broadly. "On Long Night, too. Tsk."  
  
"Make her stop," Val appealed to Zel.  
  
"I will drink," Zelas said sharply, suddenly looking much less drunk, "exactly what I please at any party I condescend to attend." Relaxing back against the plant again and letting her long lids droop back to half-mask, she mentioned, "It's my protection against Father's and your tediou-- devoted and obedient friends," she corrected herself with another, satisfied, grin. "Mourn for my baby brother, Greyweir," she commanded, waving a manicured talon in his face. "He doesn't have any protection." She snapped her fingers, and a wisp of smoke appeared with a tray of glasses.  
  
Val growled, and stalked off. Zel watched him go, then studied Zelas and suggested with friendly concern, "Take it easy, will you?"  
  
Zelas studied him back, then put her empty glass down and saluted lazily.  
  
w w w w  
  
Downstairs, the butler was standing in the way of two young women, as garishly dressed as everyone else, but in an entirely different style.  
  
"Professors Inverse and Nels Rada," the redhead in the white dress and gloves and black flying helmet and galoshes said, annoyed at the fisheye he was giving her.  
  
"We were invited," added the taller one in the violet blouse with the oversized gold-accented tie, a little defensively. She reached into the pocket of her miniskort and pulled out an engraved card that went clang on the floor when the waiter, trying not to touch her gold nail polish, fumbled it.  
  
"If I may take your outer gear," the butler said, carefully without reluctance. He took Lina's helmet, and the goggles Sylphiel had been carrying, and Sylphiel's swamp-green galoshes, and then Lina's black ones, and turned to the amphibious demon behind them.  
  
Lina put her foot down and yiped as it came in contact with a puddle. "My shoe!"  
  
As the butler conversed politely with the demon, Sylphiel tried to get his attention. Finally, as the other guest departed to join the part, he turned to them. "The elevator is to the rear and to the right."  
  
"Yeah, great, fine," Lina said, hopping wildly, "but you've got my shoe!" She pointed at her galoshes.  
  
He looked at her feet. One of them had a neat white boot on, but the other displayed only a black-stockinged calf. "I'm terribly sorry," he said, and fished the other boot out of it's galosh. She braced on his shoulder and tugged it on, with one or two unladylike grunts that made a few of the guests turn and stare.  
  
When the boot was finally on, Sylphiel clutched her shoulder and whispered, "Don't tell anyone, but I think I've got a run in my stocking."  
  
"That's it, you're wolf chow," Lina said regretfully, and looked sternly at the butler. "Tell anyone about this and I fireball your... um..." She craned her neck, trying to see whether the butler had a posterior to roast.  
  
"No, miss. The elevator is--"  
  
"To the rear," she said airily, giving up her attempts to see his.  
  
"And the right," Sylphiel finished with great dignity. They bowed each other away, leaving the butler attempting to hide an interested perk behind an a long-suffering expression.  
  
"I told you not to wear the blue stockings," Lina reminded her.  
  
"I like this pair."  
  
"I know. You've been wearing them at every party we've gone to for the last five years."  
  
"The students like them..."  
  
"Well, of course they do. My taste is impeccable. My point is, they're old."  
  
"You'll have to get me a new pair. Lina, maybe we should just go home."  
  
"We promised Zel we'd come. No wimping out. You know, this place reminds me of that nutjob, Halciform. I told you about Halciform; you remember him?"  
  
"Oh, yes, the one with the poor little Snow White girl. Rubia, wasn't it? Whatever happened to him?"  
  
But she wasn't destined to be reminded. Just then, they ran up against the fancy grillwork of the elevator. "To the rear," Lina informed Sylphiel.  
  
"And the right," Sylphiel agreed as they stepped inside, and closed the doors. "Now where?"  
  
Lina studied the panel of buttons, then clapped one hand over her eyes and slapped out randomly with the other. They waited. "Maybe I should try another button," she said dubiously. "Are we moving?"  
  
In answer, the doors sprang open on a dismal greyness with torches. "Ooh!" Lina exclaimed, cheering up immediately, and propelled herself out of the elevator with anticipatory greed. "Cellars!"  
  
Sylphiel followed more slowly, and caught up as she skidded to a halt in front of a shaggy pink carpet with enormous neon flowers all over it. "It seems to have been some sort of residence at one time," she commented.  
  
"Shut up," Lina ordered. "Do you hear that?"  
  
Sylphiel listened. The terrifying but unmistakable sound of 'Lorelie' tamed and whipped into submission and tethered to a music box drifted over the personality-laden shag carpet. Once it had been jazz. It tinkled. "We could dance to it?" she suggested.  
  
After a moment, Lina decided, "No, we couldn't." She grabbed Sylphiel's hand and dragged her along, seeking out the source of the music, and came to the simple doorframe among the torches and black iron grilling.  
  
When they peeked in, Xellos looked up from where he'd been morosely winding the music box up again. It had waddling mechanical penguins in various articles of clothing trying to dance on the top of it. "The party's upstairs," he informed them curtly.  
  
"Well, excuse us for living!" Lina snapped, insulted, and wheeled around.  
  
Sylphiel, less hasty, got to see the sulky expression under the purple-grey hair self-correct into hesitant interest. "No, wait," he said, putting the music box down on the table and half-getting up. His long, unfashionably soft dove-grey vest with its deliberate, lacy pattern of holes was undone over his crisp white shirt, whose buttonholes looked a little frayed, and he'd been sitting on his jacket. "You're Lina Inverse. You ran the Big Bangs workshop at Thaumverd Camp and never came into the nature area. I'm Xellos Rubyeye."  
  
"Uh-uh," Lina objected. "Zel said his name was Valgaav."  
  
"Val's my baby brother. Do you know Zel?"  
  
"We've known him for years," Lina groaned expressively.  
  
Cheering right up and moving to the door, Xellos beamed, "Well, then, pleased to meet you!" He plucked her hand up with a graceful turn of the wrist, kissed the air above her knuckles with a cheery flair, and nearly closed the door on Sylphiel. "What's that?" he asked Lina, eyeing Sylphiel with mild disfavor.  
  
"Oh, that's my partner, Sylphiel Nels Rada," Lina explained unenthusiastically.  
  
"Oh," Xellos grimaced, and moved away from the door with reluctant politeness. "You'd better come in, too, then. Close the door."  
  
Giggling softly, Sylphiel complied, and got her revenge by sitting down on the white sofa in a ladylike manner while Lina zoomed across the room to drool over the bookcases. "Valgaav lives here?" she demanded approvingly, fingering a copy of -Magic for Maniacs- like she wanted to run away with it.  
  
"I live here," Xellos corrected, and paused, and explained, "I live -here.- If you know what I mean."  
  
"I see," Sylphiel said warmly.  
  
Lina teased, "But you wouldn't eat your sweetbread this morning, so they won't let you go to the party, is that it?"  
  
Xellos flopped down on the sofa next to Sylphiel, taking up all of it, and pulled a sad face. "I'm the mad brother," he whispered conspiratorially in her ear, "the one they don't talk about."  
  
"The third brother in the fairy tales?" she asked. "The one who's too simple to chop down the oldest tree in the forest for firewood?"  
  
"The one who wraps all-colored rags around his knees and sits on the mantel above the fireplace and gossips with the cats?" Lina added, coming to lean her elbows on Sylphiel's shoulders.  
  
"That's me!" he chirped.  
  
"That was us, too," Sylphiel said. "And look what happened to us." At their host's questioning expression, she warned him with awful portent, "We had to marry each other. Two professors without a cent to rub between us!"  
  
"So you'd better be a good little boy, and eat your blood pudding," Lina admonished him.  
  
After regarding them with an expression that was oddly affectionate for someone who'd just been introduced, Xellos swung his legs down off the couch and invited, "Sit down, won't you?"  
  
"Thank you," Sylphiel said sedately. "It's good to be home again."  
  
"You would not -believe- what a long walk we had!" Lina added with emphasis.  
  
Xellos sighed. "It's a shame," he announced vigorously. "I was going to give a party tonight. A real one. It was all planned out and everything. I was going to--well," he finished ruefully, "it was a good idea. It might have been fun."  
  
"Is your brother anything like you?" Sylphiel asked hopefully.  
  
Horrified, Xellos started waving his hands around, his eyes shut on an embarrassed grin as he protested, "Oh, no, no, no! Don't worry, Val's -nothing- like me!" He stopped waving his hands and peeked out of one eye through splayed fingers as a thought struck him. "Do you mean to tell me you haven't met him yet? Your friend is appallingly negligent. You'd better go down right now and--"  
  
"NO!" Lina yelled.  
  
Sylphiel shook her vigorously. "Oh, no. -Definitely- no."  
  
"Definitely no," Xellos nodded ruefully, tapping his ear to make sure it still worked, and sprawled backwards onto the couch, letting his head fall back with a satisfied sigh.  
  
"Nope," agreed Lina, and Sylphiel put in a negative noise.  
  
"Nope," Xellos echoed, and a silence purring with decided inaction settled over the room  
  
It was broken by a jaunty little tune and a series of disgruntled yips. Zelas marched in with a measured stride. She was tootling on her fife, and she'd put her dom boots on over her elegant sandals. Padding behind her was the enormous Fenris, growling and muttering to himself around the handle of a picnic basket full of ice and bottles of champagne. Padding behind him was the creepy butler, carrying a tray with pieces of cheese and fruit impaled by brightly cellophaned toothpicks and surrounded by three kinds of crackers.  
  
"Zelly!" Xellos exclaimed gleefully, sitting bolt upright, and coughed as his guests gave him funny looks. "My sister, Zelas." The looks didn't go away, although the butler did.  
  
"Thought you could use a little Long Night cheer," she drawled, uncorking two of the bottles and leaning on Fenris.  
  
"What a considerate big sister!" he squealed, jumping up to attack her and Fenris with a double bearhug. When he pulled away and sat back down, the looks had gotten worse.  
  
"Yup. Sweet kid, that's me," his sister agreed smugly, and mentioned, "Your shirt's open."  
  
"Is it?" he asked without concern, slipping the errant buttons back into place without bothering to look down. "These are Lina and Sylphiel. They're friends of Zel's."  
  
"He used to live with us," Sylphiel explained, looking regretfully at the shirt.  
  
"We came to warn his future husband about him," Lina said virtuously. "He always leaves the bathtub all gritty with stone dust."  
  
"A toast to Greyweir," Zelas proposed, pouring them all glasses of champagne and snagging a second bottle for herself. "He needs it. I stand corrected," she said inaccurately, no one else having spoken and she herself at a seventy-degree angle to the ground. "He doesn't need it. He's doing juuuuuuuuuuuust fine."  
  
"What do you mean?" Xellos asked sharply.  
  
She grinned cruelly down at him. "I mean he's doing aaaall right. Having the time of his life. Got his hair tied down and Father's seeing he meets all the important entities."  
  
"Are there important entities downstairs?" Lina asked excitedly.  
  
Calmly, Sylphiel punched her in the arm.  
  
"Hey!" she yelled. "What was that for?"  
  
"We are -finished- with the prince scam, aren't we, Lina dear?" she said sweetly.  
  
"Eheh," Lina coughed, embarrassed, and looked away.  
  
"Devastatingly important," Xellos said, after he'd decided against wanting to understand that. "That's why I wanted to give a party down here."  
  
Lina lifted her glass. "Mr. Xellos Rubyeye, on Long Night, entertained a small group of very unimportant people."  
  
The girls drained their vessels (Zelas got about halfway down her bottle before she elected to breathe), and Xellos asked, with a plaintive little smile, "May I drink, too?"  
  
w w w w  
  
[end part ten]  
  
Kaeru Shisho: Your reviews make my days! Yes, the HE was Gaav. You're talking about Silk&Stone, right? I dunno... I used to visit the site a lot, but they haven't updated in about six months. Is it still a live list? Because I'm not enough of an egoist to think that I could jump-start it, yaknow?  
  
Kalis Deleira and Fragile Reflection--sorry about the wait. There was that thing where DICTIONARY GOT YANKED (oh no, I'm not still bitter about that at all at all), so I've been spending most of my energy formatting stuff for the site I'm putting together.  
  
Thanks for sticking with me, guys. It means a lot. 


	11. It was Probably the Dumplings

Disclaimer: see some other chapter.  
  
Notes: Review responses below, as per usual.  
  
ANNOUNCEMENT: (braces hands on knees and pants) Gentles, I apologize for neglecting you, and offer as compensation this chapter and the fruit of my labors over the last month or so: my site is up!!!  
  
Please visit me at www. site-bg. com/ nightfall/ index.html (without the spaces, of course)!  
  
AwA AwA AwA AwA  
  
Holiday  
  
by Nightfall Rising  
  
part eleven  
  
AwA AwA AwA AwA  
  
Upstairs, Zel was leaning against the staircase with his arms crossed, as though that would hide his outfit, and a perfectly, pleasantly blank expression. He missed his out of control bangs ferociously, and was seriously considering undoing the rabbit-shaped diamond and ruby barrettes that held them back so he could hide under them and glare at people.  
  
"Wazzamatter?" Val asked, appearing beside him, and he only just managed not to jump.  
  
"Would you believe," he asked, careful to keep his tone amiable and in fierce control of his sibilants, "that I have spent the last fifteen minutes learning how to maintain a multispecies garrison of slaves on only twelve gold a day?"  
  
"Yeah, it's amazing, the useful tips you can pick up at this kind of party," Val said, and the worst of it was that he sounded as though he meant it. "Listen, Daddy says everybody's starting to talk about my dumbass brother not being here. He's gotta show."  
  
"Got to?" he repeated, blinking.  
  
As though it had been the directive itself Zel had failed to understand, and not its purpose, Val explained, "You've gotta go get him. Right now."  
  
Zel shrugged indifferently, and allowed, "I'll ask."  
  
Regardless of all the blazingly dressed demons milling around looking for something to gossip about, Val planted his hands on either side of Zel's shoulders, stooped to lightly take his throat in his teeth, and growled, "Insist."  
  
Fighting as hard not to squeak as he had before not to hiss, Zel carefully shrugged, and sighed, "Well, if you're going to -bribe- me..."  
  
--------------------------------------------------------  
  
"I wanna do thi-is! I wanna do tha-at!  
  
Hey, you know, that's just how girls a-are!  
  
Just one slip, just one slip, and it's to hell you go,  
  
So you'd -bet-ter run to get out of -my- way!"  
  
Sylphiel was singing. Xellos was singing and clapping to the music. Zelas was fifing tolerantly while Fenris barked backbeat. And Lina...  
  
"FOR AS LONG AS I CAAAN! GET ALONG, TRY-YYY AGAAAAIN!"  
  
Lina was howling at the top of her lungs and posturing shamelessly in the middle of the floor.  
  
It ended in a big grin and a prolonged Victory pose, and then she flung herself backwards onto the couch. "Oh, that was good, was that good," she chattered happily. "Of course, I'm getting a little drunk. I haven't had any champagne since I pretended to marry that twit Hallas back when I was fifteen."  
  
"You're kidding," Zelas said flatly.  
  
"Hey, whether you're a wandering sorceress or a thaumaturgy professor, your money has to go to other things."  
  
Although she didn't seem terribly upset about it, her arm was grabbed by a grimly silent Zelas, who dragged her to the newly installed dry bar without further ceremony.  
  
"What a delightful person," Xellos laughed, looking after them. "Does Zel have any other friends like her?"  
  
"No, there aren't many people like Lina," Sylphiel smiled. "Or like Zel, for that matter. We've had such good times together."  
  
"You'll have even more fun with Val," Xellos promised. "But you'll have to promise to let Zelly and me into the Zel-Val-Lina-and-Sylphiel club.  
  
"Sylphiel!" Lina shrieked, delighted, from across the room. "Look what I found!" A little faster than was prudent, she wheeled an enormous puppet theatre, which had been folded flat and wedged between two bookcases, over next to the door. Over the seaweed-purple curtains stood the words 'Bottlenose Theatre' in beautiful gold calligraphy.  
  
"Oooh!" the taller woman exclaimed, bouncing up and diving to join her behind the curtains. "Let's do 'Little Gabriel and the Light Sword!'"  
  
A blue jellyfish and a yellow starfish in a wizard's hat sprang up in front of the curtains, facing off against what looked like a fisherman. The jellyfish bobbed up and down, saying, "Hey! You almost hooked my eye! I'm going to have my wizard turn you into a flea! A harmless little flea!"  
  
The starfish-wizard cringed as though it didn't think it could, then puffed up confidently with a thrusting out of someone's palm, and declared, "Or, to save on energy, maybe I'll just -smash you with the hammer of justice!-"  
  
Xellos screamed and dived headfirst into the cushions again. This time he managed to make most of his body disappear into the couch. His sister just cringed slightly and downed another glass.  
  
A red and an indigo-blue head poked up in front of the curtains, and their owners rested their elbows on the stage and grinned. "We sometimes put on shows for the students," Sylphiel explained, and Xellos squirmed around in a humanly impossible move to peer warily at them now that the horror seemed to be over. "Usually around midterms and finals. This is really a lovely one."  
  
"Do you know any that aren't terrifying?" he inquired plaintively.  
  
There was a knock on the door. "Xellos!"  
  
"Oh, Zel!" He tried to extricate himself from the couch, but got himself hopelessly tangled up. "Come in!."  
  
Zel did come in, in all his eye-destroying splendor. He didn't notice the girls in the big box, and neither did he blink at the increasingly contorted form of his host, who was in turn too involved with trying to free his arm to look at him. Instead, he just rapped formally on the sole of an exposed dress boot. "Mr. Rubyeye, I have a message for you."  
  
"He should have knocked higher," Lina whispered to Sylphiel, who nodded regretfully.  
  
"And I have one for you," Xellos probably said, but although his tone, matching Zel's for good cheer, came through all right, most of a cushion was crushed up against his face and the actual words got a little muffled.  
  
"I have the honor to inform you," he said, easily picking up the couch from behind with one hand and reaching underneath it with the other to help free Xellos's arm, "that your presence is urgently requested upstairs."  
  
"And I have the honor to inform you—OW! Ahhh. Thank you. That your presence is urgently requested right here." He paused, looking shifty and uncomfortable. "And, uh, maybe you could do that again?"  
  
At the same time, Zelas drawled in explanation, "There's a meeting of the club."  
  
"Your club," Xellos beamed. He'd pushed up into a sitting position by now, and his eyes were open nearly a quarter of an inch, and shining. They opened wider, though, as they took in the blue and black outfit, and his lips pursed a little in disbelief.  
  
"Come on, Blackbeard," Zel said, "the party needs you."  
  
Xellos looked helplessly at his sister, who droned, leaning against the bar and lighting up a cigarette, "Well, now's the time for all good men to come to the aide of the party." Her brother grinned, and nodded at Zel decisively.  
  
"Your father's very upset," he urged.  
  
"You don't say," Xellos drawled, and did a little lounging himself. His grin turned absolutely feral. "Oh, tell me, tell me, whatever -can- be the matter with best-beloved Daddy-darlingest-deary-dumplings?"  
  
Even Zelas, who was used to it, took a moment to stare at him. It was probably the dumplings.  
  
A little sick to his stomach, Zel manfully pushed on. "Everyone's talking about you not being there, and it's embarrassing the family."  
  
"The family!" Xellos sat bolt upright, his expression going wide and hurt in betrayal. "Oh, -Zel!-"  
  
"Uh-oh," Zelas muttered, sauntered casually behind the bar, and ducked. The other women, behind the curtain, hastened to follow her example.  
  
"Come on," the chimera tried again, alarmed, following Zelas's progress out of the corner of his eye. He had to admit, peripheral vision was useful. "It would be polite, and it would make your father happy."  
  
Xellos's face had frozen into a tight, sharp-edged smile under squinched up eyes and stormy brows. "Oh, I'm sure it would. Do you think, I wonder," he inquired with light fury, "it'd make him even happier if I crawled in on my hands and knees and scoured his toenails with my tongue?"  
  
The jellyfish took the moment of helpless, baffled silence to reach out and bap Zel in the leg with the fisherman's rod. "Hey, Zel! Look, Swan Mei, it's Zel!" Startled, the chimera turned around.  
  
"Oh, dear, oh dear," the starfish lamented, and stage-whispered, "That's not Zel."  
  
"No?"  
  
"That," the starfish said solemnly, "Is a Very Important Person."  
  
On the couch, while Zel stared, Xellos leaned back again with his fingers laced behind his head, and started grinning.  
  
"It looks like a stripper to me," the jellyfish said dubiously.  
  
"Don't get fresh, yogurt-brain!" the starfish screeched, smacking the jellyfish with a clamshell. "You treat Important Persons with respect!"  
  
"Shan't!" the jellyfish sniffed.  
  
"Izzat so? You should uphold the democratically decided upon positions of society, you horrible person who kills people for money! That is the way of JUSTICE!"  
  
"What is this?" Zel asked weakly.  
  
"The voice of experience," intoned Zelas, who had stopped hiding with the improvement of her little brother's mood.  
  
With a sudden start of recognition, Zel exclaimed, "Lina! Sylphiel!"  
  
They emerged slowly, their faces squinted and sullen with suspicion. He leaned in to give Sylphiel a hug, and Lina slapped his wrist indignantly with a slipper, crying, "Get away from my wife, you pervert!"  
  
Zel grinned at her, and said, "I am so glad you came."  
  
But she was sniffing at him. Turning her mistrustful eyes to Sylphiel, she demanded, "Do we know anybody who smells like patchouli?"  
  
"Oh!" Sylphiel uttered in despair, lifting a gentle hand to her forehead.  
  
Zel blinked, and stood up straight. He looked at them and their sorrow. He looked at Xellos, who was hugging the pillow again and looked like he was on the watch for attacking rolled-up-newspapers. He looked at Zelas, who raised a disapproving eyebrow at him, took a deep drag through her ebony cigarette holder, and blew out a perfect, smoky square.  
  
"Oh," he said sheepishly, and had the grace to blush. He pulled the bunny barrettes and the blue ribbon out of his wire hair and ran a hand through it with a godawful scraping noise. "How's that?"  
  
"Lina, darling!" Sylphiel exclaimed in delight. "Look, it's Zel Greyweir! You remember him."  
  
"Not old Zelgadis Greyweir, heartless magic-using swordsman?"  
  
"Yes!" Sylphiel squealed, and they each grabbed one of his hands and shook it heartily. "We're so glad to have you back!"  
  
"Back?" he asked, puzzled. "But I—oh. You mean the humahide stuffed shorts got me. Well, I'll go quietly." He lifted his hands, wrists together, with a martyred look.  
  
"Let's do it, ladies and gentlething," Lina said with malicious eagerness, hurtling out from behind the theatre. "And give it all you've got. Let's make this a lesson he'll remember!"  
  
They formed two lines, through which he walked at a dignified pace, slightly bent over. Zelas kicked him, and so did Lina, who hurt her foot and had to stagger around for a while and swear volubly. Sylphiel made a more prudent token gesture.  
  
Xellos yanked at his cloak with a vicious jerk that ripped the cloak off, would have choked a human and brought Zel staggering backwards a step. Then he hauled off with a Visafrank loaded punch that sent the chimera flying into a bookcase. He aimed low.  
  
Zel went down, and two shelves full of dusty thrillers fell on top of him. He shook his head vigorously to get rid of the birdies and got up, rubbing his abused posterior. "Well," he sighed, relieved as the rest went to sit on their former chairs and barstools, "that's a load off my mind."  
  
"And don't you forget it!" Lina scolded.  
  
"Oh," he said, brightening, and walking over to the couch. Xellos made room for him, but he though better of the whole sitting down idea and instead leaned on the back behind his host, who wiggled around to look at him. Or possibly his horrible shirt. "There's something I wanted to tell you. You remember the expedition I mentioned?"  
  
"The Claire Bible one?" Lina asked.  
  
"Yes. I got a pigeon from Amelia yesterday, and I think it's going to work out." Zelas popped open another bottle and started pouring while the professors exploded with excitement and Xellos sat straight up in delight and clasped his hands together. "Everyone, there's a very fair chance that by this time two months from now I'll be able to quit the expedition business."  
  
"And shed the blue skin?" Xellos asked.  
  
"It all depends on what a dragon named Milgazia does. He may have done it already."  
  
"He'll do it," Xellos assured him, practically vibrating with excitement. "Whatever it is, he'll do it."  
  
Zel looked down at him for a minute, with a look that wondered if the little demon just believed in him or was planning on pulling some strings. Then he mentally shrugged, and suggested, "Let's drink to Val. Have you two met him yet?"  
  
"Not yet," Lina said, unconcerned, "but if he's anything like his brother...!"  
  
Xellos fell off the couch laughing, and Zel had to lean over and haul him up by his belt. Before he'd even been lowered back to his seat, he was giggling, "Let's drink to Zel and Val and Milgazia and well-laid plans and good luck and taking advantage of it and—"  
  
"Oh, here you are!" cooed Phibrizzo.  
  
"In the name of L-Sama," sighed a disgusted Xellos, still dangling from Zel's hand by the back of his pants, "it's the jellyfish and his codpiece."  
  
---------------------------------------------------------  
  
[end part eleven]  
  
Review responses:  
  
Kalis Deleira: No, it's not just you; he's been worn down a bit. But as you can see, the committee to bring him back to his senses has alread formed (grins). And Xel's clothes looked cool in my head, too. I'll post that picture, eventually...  
  
ChaosD: I like words. Words are -fun.- (bounces)  
  
Kaeru Shishou: ...you pun like somebody who makes terrible puns... not just the blue but the aspic... itaaaaaai... (grins) As for Rezo--he's staying out of this one. I'm keeping him busy elsewhere, though, don't worry. That is, Xel is keeping him busy, if you want to get technical about it... in any case, the fireworks will continue in the next part!  
  
Thanks for reviewing, all of you, and see you next time! 


	12. Fighting the Dust Bunnies

Disclaimer: see some other chapter.  
  
Notes: First, I regret the delay. Can't quite apologize 'cause work first and all that, but believe me, I'm sorry about it! Wholehearted bleah from this corner. I'm feeling all unproductive, too. I've written maybe three pages in three months, and they all need a serious injection of purple. -Bleah.-  
  
On the upside, I'm taking today not only to post but to update my site, including a new Slayers pic. And, btw, anyone (Kalis) who wants to see what Xellos is wearing should go here, omitting the spaces:  
  
http: www. site-bg. com/nightfall /pics/couch .html  
  
And Kaeru, I think Xel and Zel, in that order, would agree with your quotes. I -love- Shaw! Especially 'Man and Superman.' Thanks for sticking, and for telling me what you like.  
  
VwV VwV VwV VwV VwV VwV  
  
Holiday  
  
by Nightfall Rising  
  
part twelve  
  
AwA AwA AwA AwA AwA AwA  
  
Dynast looked at them blankly. Phibrizzo, sitting on his shoulder, allowed himself a puzzled expression for a moment before he turned cheerful again and announced, "I've never been up here before. It's very... um... eclectic, isn't it?"  
  
"We like it," they all chorused.  
  
He eyed them narrowly, but decided to ignore it. "Hey, Xelsie--"  
  
"Xelsie?" Zel choked, aside to Zelas.  
  
"Everybody should have a humiliating nickname," she nodded sedately, blowing a series of smoke rings that came together to form a bull's-eye. "In order to separate people who don't use it from future targets."  
  
"--You know there's another party going on in this house, don't you?"  
  
"That vulgar cathouse upstairs?" Xellos sniffed, and rose with languid, disdainful grace to move away. "Don't speak of it."  
  
"Er," Zel said, realizing that someone had to say something. "Lina, Sylphiel, these are Dynast and Phibrizzo Rubyeye."  
  
"Cousins," Zelas said reassuringly, leaving the 'just' unsaid, and Sylphiel breathed a sigh of relief. Lina's was more of a gust.  
  
"Greyweir," Dynast said ponderously, lifting a reproving finger, "you fox." Zel blinked. "Uncle Gaav mentioned the Bible. Might have let the family in on it."  
  
"There's time," Zel shrugged.  
  
"Not likely."  
  
Zel straightened. "Are you sure about that?"  
  
"We have watchers on Milgazia. Read the message myself."  
  
"That's it!" Zel announced, jubilant, and braced himself for Xellos's flying tackle-glomp (which, to his surprise, pulled up short just before it hit him, and how had he known to expect it anyway?) and Lina's solid back thwacks.  
  
"Tuesday, lunch at Luna's," Dynast interjected, and Zel took a casual step forward in order to let Lina's instinctive dive behind him at the mention of her overbearing elder sister be less obvious. "Loan you some of my researchers. Could double your gain."  
  
Knowing Zel wasn't in it for gold but had no objection to acquiring some, Sylphiel teased him, "My father made me promise to donate anything after my first million gold to the temples."  
  
Dynast looked down his long, chiseled nose at her, and repressively intoned, "You're probably joking, professor." He turned back to Zel. "Make more than that within two years, with the right people's help."  
  
"Which right people," Lina asked sweetly, "did you have in mind?"  
  
"No freeze-feasts," Phibrizzo whined, yawning. "Come on, let's all go upstairs and trip the drunk people. It's a great party."  
  
"I'm not going upstairs," Xellos enunciated flatly. He has crawled onto Fenris's back, and was sprawled with his cheek resting between the great black wolf's ears and one hand drifting down to scratch between the vicious green eyes.  
  
"But Xelsie, Gaav is--"  
  
"I thought he was," Xellos cut his shorter cousin off sharply. "But I'm not going up."  
  
"Well, it's up to you, of--"  
  
"But," he said, suddenly wide-eyed and earnest, "I wouldn't dream of keeping anyone who wants to!"  
  
"Always been ill-mannered," Dynast sneered.  
  
"Oh, no!" Xellos cried, dismayed. "Have I been remiss as a host? Well, in that case, let me make it up to you. I know! For old times' sake, how about we have a go on the old uneven bars?"  
  
Icy annoyance met purple malice for a period just long enough to communicate displeasure, just brief enough not to turn into a staring contest. Dynast turned his heavy body around and swept out. From his shoulder, Phibrizzo called, "See you later, Professors Perverse."  
  
"Funny, that," Sylphiel mused, a moment before Dynast tripped over Fenris's lazily beating tail and went stumbling out. "I thought your name was Inverse. I must be wrong."  
  
Lina sighed happily at the retreating mazoku, then spun around and spread her arms wide. "Mr. Greyweir!" she sang.  
  
Zel gulped, and peered at her with some concern.  
  
But her good mood was genuine. "In tribute to your stunning achievements in the fields of love and business and on the behalf of the Wolf Pack Island Anti-Stuffed Shirt and Lycanthropic Kennel Club, it's my intention to congratulate you." There was much polite applause, and Zel relaxed. "And!" she interrupted the clappers. "And to present you with this little token of their esteem and affection."  
  
Zel snuck a quick, evaluating look at Xellos before accepting the theoretically harmless pink teddy bear, but its owner was smiling as though minding was the farthest thing from his thoughts since shaking Phibrizzo's hand. Cradling it like the priceless thing it was, he stepped cautiously onto the sofa cushions, hoping the couch wouldn't collapse beneath him.  
  
It didn't, so he inclined his head and said, "Madame Toastmaster, Ladies and Gentlething. As some of you would probably die of shock if I made the gracious speech which seems to be called for at this juncture, I think I'll pass in the interests of public health. Now, if you think that's just an excuse to get out of it, all I can say is, you're right. However, this gentlesomethingorother and I have been practicing a few displays of gymnastics and demonic -legardepied,- with which we are now prepared to entertain you."  
  
He extended a hand which Xellos, beaming, accepted in order to lever himself to his feet and onto the back of the sofa where he stood, bowing and posing and making 'here is the great one' gestures towards Zel. The indicated chimera bowed once, and employed his demonic speed to race up the walls and to the ceiling.  
  
As a general rule, he could only get halfway across a room this large before gravity caught up to him. Now, though, just as the laws of physics made their displeasure with him known, Xellos suddenly disappeared, emerging in midair with feet just on Zel's falling shoulders, and they both hovered there for a moment. Then Xellos let them fall and, when Zel's feet were about to touch the floor, leaned forward, pulling them off balance. They fell into a joint somersault and, sitting on the floor, indicated that the time for applause had come.  
  
Then Gaav and Val walked in and, appalled, chorused, "Xellos!"  
  
Zelas breathed out a smoke object shaped like a stop sign and droned, "Meeting adjourned."  
  
AwA AwA AwA AwA AwA AwA  
  
Pushing quickly to his feet, Zel turned to his intended with an excited, "Val, I've got a surprise for you. These are--"  
  
"You may speak in a moment," Gaav stopped him. He was just as badly dressed as everyone else, but in his case it had only required a party hat on his crimson mane in addition to his customary trenchcoat. "You will all come upstairs. It's nearly twelve. It's time to honor the death of the year."  
  
"Long Night comes down here as well, Father," Xellos said softly, still seated flat on his rump like a propped up doll, with his legs dandling in front of him.  
  
"Someone who's caused as much trouble as you have," Gaav mentioned, "should be content with escaping retribution without giving in to the urge to make snide comments."  
  
"If you, as a mazoku, aren't expected to offer consideration, honored Father, or to comply with my devout and very occasional requests, neither can I, as a mazoku, be expected to react well to being--"  
  
"I think," Sylphiel interrupted hastily, "that we should go and, uh, make sure Lina's other boot got put away properly."  
  
"Val," Zel said in the moment of slightly decreased tension, "these are Lina and Sylphiel. I told you about them." In an attempt to encourage the de-escalation, he smiled evilly and added, "I told them about you."  
  
"Yo," Val said, without interest.  
  
"And the big guy must be Mr. RubyEye," Lina guessed, cheerfully flashing him a victory sign.  
  
A little taken aback and certainly not used to getting that kind of reaction, Gaav grudged, "Your friends are welcome here, of course, Mr. Greyweir."  
  
"I'll see you upstairs, Lina," Zel said.  
  
"Oh, no, Zel," Sylphiel disagreed, pretending not to be uncomfortable. "I really think we'd better be going. You see, I have the most awful run in my stocking."  
  
"Why don't you go up to my room," Xellos didn't offer. "It's in the tower." He had a second thought, and added, "there could be some clear nail polish under my bed for your stocking. It might have dried up by now, but you can fight the dust bunny army for it if you get bored."  
  
"Sounds like fun!" Lina beamed. "Well, congratulations on your engagement, Mr. R," she said, meaning Val, and nudged Zel playfully in the ribs. He swore she had brass elbows. "You're not getting much, but I'm sure you can improve him." She ignored all the raised eyebrows that Sylphiel was only pretending not to see, and strolled out confidently, dragging her partner by the wrist.  
  
Zelas stood up, took a drag of her cigarette, and ambled over to the door, intoning, "Do not pass Starto. Do not collect two hundred gold." The door closed behind her.  
  
"They're good people, really," Zel said, looking after her uncertainly. "In their own way. Don't you think so, Xellos?"  
  
"Don't ask me," Xellos returned bitterly, and pulled his knees up to his chest.  
  
"Don't sulk," Gaav reprimanded him heavily, "it's not attractive." Zel looked at him in surprise. Of all the reasons he might have expected to be behind that admonition, that was the least likely. "Now go upstairs. Valgaav and I are going to speak to Mr. Greyweir."  
  
"I'll go," Xellos agreed in a low voice, which rose slowly. "I'll even go upstairs, to please you, Father. I just want one thing in exchange. I want to bring those people back afterwards, here, and have supper with them. Won't that be all right, if we don't cause a disturbance?"  
  
"You belong upstairs," Gaav said, not bothering to say that he wasn't going to give any concessions for something that was a part of the order of things.  
  
"I'd be very much obliged to you!" Xellos pressed, sounding as though his voice was about to crack. "I don't know why--it has something to do with my lady Mother--but please, just let me have tonight in this room!"  
  
"What special value this room has I don't know." Gaav pinched his nose in an incipient-headachy way.  
  
"What has yours? It's the only home I've got," Xellos retorted.  
  
"Did I ask for an explanation? I believe that what I asked for was for you to absent yourself and join the party."  
  
"I believe, if I may be so bold as to state my own opinion," Xellos 'ventured' with phony deference, "that your true belief is that once our respective horns are no longer so immediately interlocked, I'll come around and submit. I'm sorry to tell you that I won't. This means something to me, and for once you can't stop me, because whatever other powers you have, Honored Father, you can't stop me from giving me the very last thing you want: a scene. Tonight. Upstairs."  
  
Gaav looked at him with disfavor. "Your presence here," he rumbled, "gives me no greater pleasure than you, and is to no purpose. I will determine where you may best serve the family. You may be prepared to leave with a company in perhaps three weeks."  
  
"Perfect," his son returned coldly. "Except that I prefer to work alone."  
  
"As you wish."  
  
"It's all," Xellos burst out, "I've ever asked for, to be allowed to work for you, and to -leave this house!- I've been burning to get out for years, but it's never been so bad as tonight--I can't stand it anymore," he finished, lowering his cheek to rest on his knees, facing away from his father, his voice going ragged and his hands clenching, "it's doing terrible things to me..."  
  
Zel took an impulsive step towards him, but Val looked at him curiously and he stopped.  
  
"And now," Gaav sighed impatiently, rubbing at his temples, "that you have concluded your melodramatics, you will leave this room."  
  
"Oh, as to that," Xellos said, after a moment, his voice suddenly dry, and he looked up with a face completely drained, and pulled himself to his feet, rather like a puppet. "As regards leaving the room, I have no objection. I know you won't be able to stand it in here for long. I'll come back when you're done." He bowed to his father, and phased away.  
  
[end part twelve] 


	13. After I've Eaten His Kidneys, Son

Disclaimer: see some other chapter.  
  
Notes: A darker chapter. Things will brighten up, though. Next time: shonen-ai!  
  
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Holiday  
  
by Nightfall Rising  
  
part thirteen  
  
AwA AwA AwA AwA AwA AwA  
  
With a sense of sureality, Zel realized that Gaav was beaming at him proudly, as though he'd never heard of such a creature as a Xellos. He tilted his head enquiringly, and was rewarded with a widening of the thick lips. "I take it," Gaav said in a much mellower tone than Zel had heard from him yet, "that I won't have to worry about how you'll take care of Valgaav."  
  
Deciding that it would be good manners to play along with his host's decision that the last five minutes hadn't happened, Zel smiled at Val, who obligingly sauntered over and threw an arm around his shoulders, and simply returned, "We'll manage."  
  
"Dynast has informed us," Gaav went on, again as though no comment had been made by anyone but himself (and possibly using the royal we), "of your expedition's successful acquisition of the Claire Bible. A noteworthy accomplishment. You are to be congratulated."  
  
"You do know how to kill off the year with style," Val agreed proudly, and leaned in closer to suck contentedly on his stony blue neck.  
  
"I prefer to think of it as starting off right," he returned complacently.  
  
"Eh," said Val dismissively. "You're just strange."  
  
Gaav cleared his throat to get their attention back, and said, looking very pleased with himself, "When you return from your bloodmoon, a favorable position will await you in my tactical division."  
  
"That's very generous of you," said Zel, who would have died before showing he was touched at having his talents taken in consideration in the middle of the nepotism. "But I wouldn't be able to accept it right away. You see, the success of the Claire Bible expedition makes it possible to put a certain plan of my own into effect."  
  
"Oh?" asked Gaav expectantly, not displeased.  
  
"You see," he began, eager to show off the insights Lina had hammered into his thick skull with a large pointy stick and a big mallet, "a person can't have something like this," he waved at his face, "happen to them without it taking over their life, at least for a while. With the Claire Bible, my search for a way to fix myself is over. I want to take some time to remember who I am, and what life is about, and how the world works, and what people are like with other people.  
  
"After all, power by itself is no good to a person who doesn't know who's using it, and what for. Don't you think?" He faltered at the slow burn on Gaav's stony features, and turned to his fiance. "Val, help me explain it to him." But Val's beginning-to-be-annoyed incomprehension was no better. "Well, you understand, don't you, Val?"  
  
The appeal to his son, as though this were something Val would approve of, seemed to mollify Gaav to the point where he was willing to give Zel's intentions the benefit of the doubt. He groped, "You wish to build an individual name for yourself?"  
  
"I hope you won't try to make me feel guilty about wanting to strike out on my own," he warned. "Even if it turns out to be a worse idea than helping my grandfather with his research, even if I've had enough and given up on humanity for good in six months, still, I want to see. If I join up with someone now, I know there'll never be another chance. So no one can mind if I just have a try, can they, Val?" After a moment, beginning to suspect that he ought to be concerned, he insisted, "Can they?"  
  
With a very worried expression, Val turned to his father (practically clutched his lapels), and coaxed, "Daddy, let me talk to him alone for a minute."  
  
"After I've eaten his kidneys, son," Gaav rumbled, more or less calmly.  
  
"Please, Daddy," Val pressed. He was, Zel was taken aback to note, batting his eyes. "I'll take care of it."  
  
"Greyweir," Gaav addressed him angrily, "Your timing is worthy of my other boy for awkwardness."  
  
"Daddyyyyyy," Val whined.  
  
"I see, sir," Zel said stiffly. "Maybe--"  
  
"Daddy!" Val shouted, frustrated, and immediately moderated his tone. "Please go up. We'll be there in a minute."  
  
With the angry exit of the large man with the fangs, Zel relaxed. He sighed, and forced his fingers under the wires to scratch his head. "I don't think he understood what I was trying to say," he said ruefully.  
  
"What the hell made you do that?" Val exploded, gesturing wildly in a way, Zel didn't miss, that showed off his chest to good advantage. "Why the hell would you deliberately piss him off with talk like that? Tonight!"  
  
No more simpering, Zel noted, relieved. "Talk? You think it was just talk?" he asked, letting his eyelids drop skeptically.  
  
"If that," Val contemptuously snorted.  
  
"It wasn't," he said shortly.  
  
"Don't you realize what Daddy's offering you?" he demanded.  
  
"I think," Zel said calmly, struggling to keep his temper, "that some clarification is in order."  
  
"I'm clear," announced Val in a tone that would brook no arguments and which Zel had no intentions of paying any attention to. "You've convinced yourself that you're ready to retire, which is bullshit because aside from not having hit thirty yet you're a hyper little bulldozer. I mean--look, sometimes people realize they're tired after they take a vacation. We can take a good long one if you want, give you a chance to pull yourself together."  
  
Catching his temper's tail just before it escaped for good, he said, "I don't need to pull myself together. This is something I want to do. Are you even listening to me?"  
  
"Yeees..." Val said hesitantly, and then blurted, "But you don't know how exciting our business can be. Give it a chance. I know you'll love it. There's nothing more rewarding than rearranging someone innards into kanji with your bare hands."  
  
Zel stared at him, disturbed.  
  
"What?"  
  
"..."  
  
"What?"  
  
"...Give me a second to work through that image. Then we can return to the increasingly evident fact that you have this bizarre comprehension block around what I'm trying to say."  
  
Val's brow furrowed. "What's wrong with internal balloon kanji? It's fun. Even my wimpo brother likes it."  
  
All Zel could hear for a moment was the sound of his inner voice calmly informing him that it wanted a brownie and a cup of coffee. Right now.  
  
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When his ears cleared up, Val was still talking. "...Actually better at it than me. So maybe we should wait until we get back from our bloodmoon and let him teach you. I know you'd be good at the incision, with your skin, and since you don't break your lockpicks I bet you could--"  
  
"Val? Has it dawned on you that after my expedition gets back I'm going to lose the skin?"  
  
Val shrieked loud protest, and kept it up for quite some time. Weredragon that he was, he burned the doggie-bed to a blackened lump. Zel winced. Xellos was not going to be happy.  
  
When the screaming had stopped and sulphurous eyes were glaring death at him, he uncovered his long, sensitive ears and scowled, "It isn't as though it's an irreversible process. Brau demons aren't uncommon, and golems are easy, and I kept a copy of the notes. I just want to make the experiment and find a few things out about myself. Try a little faith, will you?"  
  
Val went over to the doggie bed, pulled a pair of dress daggers out of his vest, and shredded it like a weedwhacker--the furniture, not his vest. This seemed to calm him down. He was much more in control when he came back. "Look. Zel. It's really a good idea to get established first. That way... uh... that way Daddy can give you resources. Yeah. Wait a year or two, okay? For your bitch?"  
  
Zel regarded him for a long moment, deeply disappointed. "You think you can work me around to your point of view by then," he stated. "Don't you."  
  
They were in the middle of a silent standoff when Xellos dispiritedly kicked the door open and drooped down on one of the bar stools. It took him a moment to notice Val's alterations. "Year death in--oh. Oh, dear. Zelly's going to slaughter you at a moderate pace, Val. She killed that polar bear with her bare mouth. I may help."  
  
"Was it that comfortable?" Zel asked.  
  
"Not really, but I tracked it down for her. Year death in six minutes, if anyone's interested."  
  
"Come on," Val said, grabbing Zel's wrist.  
  
"Did Lina and Sylphiel leave?" he asked Xellos, who shrugged.  
  
"Maybe they're upstairs," Val suggested.  
  
"All possibilities are possible until it's definitively proven that they didn't happen," Xellos agreed, uninterested. "I left them in my room. Anybody want some cold cuts before they start the big whoopdefizz? There's some lake dragon sashimi. It's only aged a few weeks, it should still be nice and toxic." He popped a piece into his mouth from the platter on the bar and chewed dispiritedly.  
  
"You coming up?" Zel asked. Xellos lifted eyes to him that said, 'I assume you must be joking, but I don't care enough to ask.'  
  
Val was glowering. "Listen, you pigheaded--"  
  
Anger turned the sharp eyes almost rose quartz, and he began with some heat, "I'd rather be pigheaded than a crawling, toadified--no," he mused, cooling back down into low spirits in a mind-boggling quarter second, "that never goes anywhere, does it."  
  
Val rolled his eyes and started for the door. He didn't get very far, though, since his half-ton boyfriend wasn't moving. Surprised, he demanded, "Aren't you coming?"  
  
"I'll stay a little with Xellos, if that's all right," he declared as politely as he could manage.  
  
"But it's not all right," Val frowned. "Daddy wants us upstairs."  
  
"I'll be up later, Val," he said quietly. After a moment, Val left, leaving Zel to be impressed that he hadn't slammed the door.  
  
When he looked over, Xellos was regarding him with a low key but disturbingly maternal little smile. "You'd better go up, don't you think?" he suggested in a gentle 'I'm only thinking about what's good for you' voice.  
  
"Not right now," he said, feeling about as depressed as Xellos looked.  
  
"I won't be a very good host," he was warned. "I've done all my party tricks."  
  
He said, "I don't need to be entertained," and didn't even care that his voice came out wrenched and soft.  
  
After a moment, Xellos looked sideways at him, calculating and wistful and determined. "You wouldn't care to ease the birth of a new year full of boredom and disappointment with a dance, would you, Master Greyweir?"  
  
"I very much would," he said, and his voice and throat were so tight that he didn't say anything else until the ridiculous penguin-shaped music box was wound and he was enclosed in warm arms that held his rough solidity like glass.  
  
[end part thirteen] 


	14. Blood on Fire

Disclaimer: see some other chapter.

Notes: Yikes. I completely forgot about this thing.--good grief, -that- long??! Kaeru, please take my new pic ( www .site-bg. com /nightfall /pics /caveat. html ) as an apology, thanks for the nudge; something like that... I think it's an appropriate apology, since for once I delayed a Saiyuki project to work on something slayery. nn;; My poor DJ, shoved aside for knotwork. (grins)

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Holiday

by Nightfall Rising

part fourteen

AwA AwA AwA AwA AwA AwA

They were enough of a height that it didn't matter who led and Xellos, the taller by a few centimeters, seemed content to rest their temples together and let him move them. As they traveled slowly around the room, their feet barely separating and smooth heat reaching out to him through all the cloth, the lump in his throat slowly eased. Eventually, he was able to smile, if a little unsteadily, and gravely inform his partner, "There's a conspiracy against you and me, demon."

"What's that?" asked Xellos in a sleepy, floating tone.

"Avid dominion."

"I know," Xellos admitted, and pulled him tight.

"They won't let you have any fun," he complained softly, gazing past the regular fringe of purple-grey hair in front of his eyes, "and they won't give me time to think."

The fringe tilted and receded as Xellos looked up at him, eyes large and just a little narrow with mocking sympathy. "I suppose," he said, "like the great fathead you are, you went and told Daddy-dearest all your little hopes and dreams." Zel could feel his expression fall just a little, and the demon's supple mouth went long with the irony. "I trust it's all been laid out to your satisfaction. Of course, I haven't put my trust anywhere productive in centuries." After a moment, he added compassionately, "Bad?"

"Bad enough," Zel admitted, shifting his eyes away.

Xellos held him close, and sighed, "Poor boy," and stoked down his back.

Pulling away suddenly so as to look at him better, Zel demanded, "And what about you?"

Xellos screwed his face up into a charming kitty grin, then hesitated and let it fall. "Not so hot, either."

Given this gift of a concession, Zel couldn't do anything else but hold him close and whisper 'poor demon' in turn. They danced a few more slow, rocking steps, and then he pulled away again as a thought hit him. "What if they're right?" he asked, himself startled by the idea.

"Don't you believe it!" Xellos cried in a soft sort of horror, hands fisted in his hideous shirt.

But Zel, shaking his head doubtfully, said, "They're very sure."

"Damn sure," Xellos cried in a horror that was finished being soft, employing the expletive as a verb, not an adjective. "And damn them! Let them be sure! Let them be right, even! What right do they have to decide what's right for you? It's your mistake to make, isn't it? You know where you want to go, don't you?"

"Well, I thought so," he trailed off uncertainly.

Xellos smiled miserably and leaned back against him. "So did I," he sighed wryly. "I hate being off my meds. Just imagine making such a desperate fuss over something as unimportant as this party!"

Zel scoffed, "My announcement party, not important?" and Xellos chuckled. "But really," he said seriously, "what if it's not just a party?"

"You mean, divinity is in the detail?" Xellos asked, and he nodded. "You won't find divinity in this vicinity, Blackbeard. All hope abandon, ye who enter here."

"We don't abandon anything, in my family," Zel said. "-Foy est tout.-"

"Faith is all?" He laughed. "Is that your motto, Greyweir?"

"So they tell me. And I think you're wrong. It is important."

"Well, if it is, then I'm not," Xellos returned, his voice heavy with a forgiving sort of irony. "And you'll have to be satisfied with that answer, because it's the only one I'm getting."

"Xellos!" he blurted, horrified, and was so occupied with not letting himself babble 'you can't think like that, you can't give in like that' that he didn't notice until his gloved fingers were enmeshed in fine purple hair and his lips were pressed between huge purple eyes what he was doing. "You can't abandon me to play drycleaner to the humahide shorts," he mumbled against an eyebrow. His hand at the small of Xellos's back had pulled them together, and that elegantly tailored length was pressed all up against him in shock. He'd never had a real brother to hug, but he didn't think he would have liked it so well.

In the aftermath of the first round of bells, which he would have been happy to ignore, he could hear the gulp as Xellos pulled back with a bright and thoroughly shaken smile. "You can count on Brother Xellos for that," he chirped, eyes huge, and looked up at the second peal. "Listen!"

"And here we are," Zel said softly, more or less to have something to say.

The third peal, and Xellos turned to him, still looking ruffled. "Proud year death, Pinkeye."

"Happy new year, Xellos." And because he wasn't really a mazoku, he leaned forward and kissed him again, this time in the soft place between temple and cheek, and murmured, "It's our tradition."

This time Xellos really pulled away from him, looking as though he were going to come apart at the seams, but still trying to smile. "You'd better go," he said. His teeth were bared in a carefree enough manner, but the bottoms of his eyes and the corners of his mouth were falling down on the job. "They'll be waiting upstairs."

Encouraged by the mixed messages, Zel slowly began, "Xellos... Your imagination-challenged overbearing red spiny blowfish of a father... well, I won't speak my mind on the subject, but I find myself in a difficult position."

Xellos smiled quick appreciation, and then tilted his head to regard the chimera seriously. Considering Zel's blue zebra-stripes, this displayed his admirable capacity for a discriminating focus. "Zel... do you love Val or don't you?"

"Of course I do," he muttered automatically and somewhat uncomfortably. His terrifying expedition leader, who almost certainly owed her appointment to either habitual (but always unintentional) intimidation or her father's position as Dean of Students and Vice President of the Academy, would have had something to say about people who kissed the eyebrows of the brothers of fiancees, and it would have lasted several minutes.

"Then don't run away the first time he really needs something. No one else can play your part tonight, Zel. Not without a masterpice of an illusion spell," he added thoughtfully, "but the master has already expressed his unwillingness to leave this room before tomorrow. Or, no, wait, that would be later today, now. Either way, you'd better go."

Zel's lips twitched at humility's unabashed absence. Even with the lightened mood, though, it was only with reluctance that he propelled himself through the door and towards the elevator. Zelas came out when it opened, and he unhesitatingly filched her second bottle.

She turned and waved the long, perfectly manicured fingers of her suddenly freed hand at him as the elevator doors closed between them, and he saluted her with the bottle, which turned out to be a nice and earthy sort of smoky white. What he cared about primarily, though, was getting in a few good swallows before the doors opened on the party.

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By the time Zelas had swayed her way back into the crypt, her brother had slumped down into the white sofa. He was managing quite the melodramatic sprawl; Wallis's 'Death of Chatterton' embodied, only without the fallen bottle of poison on the floor.

Fortunately, Zelas had brought one. "Proud year death," she greeted him, snaking into the room.

"Same to you," he smiled listlessly, without moving. She smiled languorously back, and insinuated one of the glasses hanging off her fingers into the relaxed hand on his chest. He rose to a sitting position as though gravity didn't apply to him, and watched her fill their glasses with bloodwine. Almost dreamily, he asked, "What's it like to get drunk, Zelly?"

"It's," she started, then peered at him suspiciously. "How drunk?"

He thought about it for a moment and answered, "Good'n drunk," with a decisive nod.

"Graaaaaand," she sighed expansively, and sank down beside him. He lay back, until his head was resting in her lap. She played idly with his fringe as he thoughtfully swirled his wine up in front of his eyes.

"How?" he asked finally, when the wine didn't seem to have any answers.

"Well, to begin with," she started, toying with his collar, "it... it brings you to life." A collar was no substitute for a thick ruff of dark fur, but any kind of petting would relax him, and this sounded like a conversation he wanted to be bipedal for. "You can feel it all through your veins, like blood on fire."

"Can you?" he asked wistfully. "Does it make you warm?"

She nodded solemnly, although she didn't know if he'd see it. Her own eyes had drifted shut with the lassitude of lying down with a packmate and murmering comfort-stories. "N'after a while," she smiled lazily, "you start to know."

"What do you know, Zelly?"

"Oh... you just do, that's all. You feel... I d'no. Important."

He wiggled a little, and she could hear him smiling in satisfaction. "That must be good."

"Good," she echoed, her lips curling up. Then she thought of something else, and shook him a little, a quick rub over his collarbone just to get his attention. "Oi. But then the game starts."

"What game?" he asked drowsily, putting the glass down and snuggling up to her, his pointed little chin resting on her knee, his cheek resting on crossed arms and his feet dangling up behind him.

"Mm," she smiled. "Like hunting in the water. In sand. You think sharp as pain, clear as diamond, eeeeeasy. But every move, every sentence is a problem." She sank comfortably into the couch. "It gets pret-ty int'resting," she warned, smiling like a sleepy shark.

He frowned, tilted his head up at her. "You get beaten, though, don't you," he confided.

"Sure," she comforted him, petting his neck soothingly, "but that's good too. And you don't mind anything, baby," she whispered, stroking down his back. "None of it matters. You don't mind anything at all. And you can sleep."

"How long can you keep it up?" he asked solemnly.

She opened her eyes and looked down at him surprised. "Long while; long as you last."

She watched his face crumble before he buried it against her leg. "Oh, Zelly, that's awful."

"Think so?" she smiled lazily, bitterly. "Other things're worse."

"Where does it end up?" he asked bravely, wide-eyed, as though it were just the end of a fairy tale.

"Where does everyone end up?" she laughed down at him, not unkindly. "You die." He sighed, disappointed, and she caressed him again. "But that's all right, too."

"Zelas?" he asked curiously. "Can you do it on bloodwine?"

"Can you..." she started, puzzled. He'd developed the stuff himself; it was about three hundred proof. But then she looked down. And she'd thought he was crumbling before. She fisted his chin hard, pulled him up, dug her claws into his jaws to keep him with her. "What's'a matter, baby?"

"Nothing," he smiled up at her, and she'd never seen a thinking entity look quite so miserable. His closed eyes were in danger of spilling over with blood.

She pulled him roughly up, head on her shoulder, and wrapped herself around him. "I know."

"Oh?" he sniffed, blinking hard.

She knew he kept handkerchiefs up his sleeves, but she didn't take them out. "Zel?"

His face turned to iron and, forgetting about the untouched glass on the floor, he demanded, "Give me some more wine, Zelas."

"Between the tiger and hyena?"

"Give me some, Zelly."

"You can tell me, cublet." He vibrated against her for a moment, then, defeated, drooped into her neck and spoke quietly, just a few words. She nodded for a moment--satisfied? Resigned? Whatever else, she wasn't surprised. "That so. Something else, isn't it."

He laughed bitterly. "Terrific."

"Luck to you," she wished him, and raised her glass to clink against his eyebrows.

At once, he recoiled violently, scrambling off of her and tearing her stockings with a careless motion of his boot. "I don't want any of that," he said fiercely, and tore away on foot, just like a male, through the door and to the elevator, going up to Val.

It was probably too much to hope that he'd manage to sabotage matters by failing to pull himself together and opening the doors with that face still on. She sighed, and downed her wine. And then, reflectively, she sipped away at his until it was gone, and poured them both another glass.

end part fourteen

Next chapter: Return of the Humor! The Mazoku Strike Back! (Lucas references not included.)

I may be unworthy of feedback at the moment (cringes) . But as you can see, I –respond- to it like anything! For example, Kaeru Shisho gave me a very polite kick in the tail this morning, and voila! Post! And picture. So, you see? Reviews will definitely be met with positive reinforcement! It could extend to pound cake. (nods impressively, then goes and locks self in sheep paddock where self belongs...)


	15. Call and Response

Disclaimer: see some other chapter.

Notes: Happy Halloween! Kaeru Shisho has done some wonderful things for this fic, which are at the Slayers page on my site.

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Holiday

by Nightfall Rising

part fifteen

AwA AwA AwA AwA AwA AwA

Xellos leaned against the elevator wall until he had control of his expression, and then he phased to the stop of the stairs, just in time for the last thing he'd ever wanted to hear.

"Guests and fellow-predators," Gaav boomed, eight feet of resplendance in a stylish crimson trenchcoat and lime-green party hat, "most valued associates, listen up. As you're all pretending not to know in order to sound surprised, this is not just a Year Death party. I'm announcing the engagment of my son Valgaav to this guy, Mr. Zelgadis Greywier. Congratulate him, he's done well for himself. I hope the rest of you do just as well over the coming year in my name. We sit down to supper in ten minutes, so if you haven't told Zoemelguster which gender you want for your entree yet, better do it fast."

"How nice," Xellos sighed, too far gone to be much more than dispirited.

Unfortunately, a school of his aunt Dolphin's attendants heard him, and surrounded him to put their hands and fins all over him, burbling things like, "Aren't you thrilled? Isn't it delightful?"

"Yes," Xellos beamed as he slipped through them, kissing all the appendages that ended up near his face. "Yes, I am." He was. Really, he was. He'd decided he would be and he was. Val was getting the very best, and that was the only thing that mattered.

Dolphin herself was waiting at the bottom of the stairs to smooch him and cover his face with green lipstick. "I'm sure you'll be very happy," she shrilled.

"You're thinking of my brother," he yelled over the howl that was happening on the other stairway as everyone tried to grope the happy couple.

"Whaaaaat?" she yowled.

"No, no," he shouted back, tearing free of her. "My brother!" And then he went to find him.

Xellos eventually fought his way to the opposite stairwell. By the time he reached the heart of the gropefest, he was extremely displeased to discover, its objects had won free and its componants didn't much care who they were feeling up. He slashed someone's throat out of sheer, instinctive indignation, and phased, vexed and bruised, into a clear portion of the floor to look for his brother in a -sane- place.

Val was hiding in the alcove behind the chicken statue, looking like he was on the verge of losing his last meal. Xellos ignored this state of affairs and manfully delivered his message. "I'm-so-so-so-so-happy-for-you-isn't-it-wonderful?" he gushed mechanically and, duty fulfilled, turned on his heel to go back to his rooms and mope.

But Val was throwing an arm around him, and it didn't look like he was going anywhere soon. "Thanks for coming down, rat-sneak," he muttered gratefully, and then bawled in Xel's ear, "NOW GET BACK TO BED! YOU SHOULDN'T EXCITE YOURSELF WITH A MIGRAINE!"

"Thank you, dimwit," he muttered, clenching his teeth. "If I'd had one -before,- my head would have exploded just now, and let me also express my gratitute for -attracting the circling vultures!-"

"Oops," Val said, abashed.

Xellos glared at him, and looked in annoyance at the six lower-level mazoku who didn't know any better than to try and feed off the pain of their betters. It wasn't like he could even kill the presumptous little slimes, not at this kind of a party. "I'M FEELING AAAAAAALL BETTER NOW," he bawled back, and the disappointed fools went off to look for more genuine prey.

"Ow," Val winced, turning a green to almost match his hair.

"Serves you right," he clucked unfeelingly, then turned them around and pasted a bright smile on. "So! Where's the lucky boychip?"

Val scowled. His lip went so far out that Xellos was just about ready to find some pretty thing to bite it for him when he snarled, "I haven't seen 'the lucky boychip' since the announcement."

"I'm not surprised," he said tartly. "You forgot to warn him, didn't you."

Val blinked. "About what?"

Xellos manifested a set of brass knuckles and clipped his little brother smartly on the head. "About the group grope, spike-for-brains."

"...Oh."

"Honestly. A more uptight specimen I haven't seen since we dipped Dynast's head in alum."

Val snickered. "Paff ee a ftraw, Fibby, eye ips are ftuck!" Xel grinned back. "But he didn't seem all that upset at the time. You never said why he set those yetis on you."

"Oh, well, I may have kinda sorta splashed him with it from behind as he was leaving," Xellos told the ceiling, innocently twiddling his fingers.

Val snerked and choked. "Zel's really not -that- uptight, though, you know--"

"I don't -want- to know!" Xellos said hastily, and in the moment of saying so, he really believed it. "Just tell me where he is."

And as quickly as that, the scowl was back. "That's something I wouldn't know," he snapped. "He wanted to pick a fight with Daddy--said -the- most -insulting- things--they didn't even make any sense! Then after the announcement he just ran off."

"Don't be upset," Xellos interrupted. "Or at least, don't swear a blue streak in front of the guests. Happy perky party face, O guest of honor, right? Of course right! Repeat after me: everything's perfect."

"Everything's perfect," Val said dourly.

"Like you mean it! Come on. Repeat. I'm getting married."

"I'm getting married," Val repeated, rolling his eyes, but he was starting to smile.

"To somebody who can stand up to Father and get away with it..."

"To someone who Daddy approves of..."

"And is really sexy..."

"And is really fu--"

"Why, he-llo-, Sherra! Yes, isn't it just the bestest ever? We're all -so- excited!"

"Okay, fine, and is really sexy..."

By this time they were both laughing. "And clearly only wants to have sex with me..."

"And maybe I can train some kinks into him later..."

"And my big brother's going to go find him and drag him back by his jittery blue toes and hang him upside down in the dungeon until he learns some manners..."

"Xel, you're really the best sometimes, you know that?"

"Vally, you're supposed to be call-and-responding! Did I say that? I don't think I said that. I wouldn't say that! Not out loud, anyway."

"Okay," Val sighed, and relaxed back against the alcove. "Okay. But really, of all the times!"

"You shush. Go get smashed or something. I'll find him," Xellos scolded, and hurled himself back into the whirl of the party.

He promptly tripped over Phibrizzo, who cooed down at him, "Xelsie! Isn't it marvelous?"

"Too, too, marvelous," he cooed back, picking himself up off the newly waxed floor, and muttered "you undersized loli-chan nutjob," as he scrambled away, sneezing from the smell of lemons. He was just quick enough to avoid a stroke of black lightning, but the subsequent unimpressed stares at its caster from the rest of the guests diverted enough of Phibrizzo's attention to allow Xellos to scramble away safely.

He was laughing breathlessly as he careened into the door of the servant's hall and fumbled it open. Well, Father had asked him to come down; he couldn't be held responsible for chaos resultant from the unheard of spectacle of Xellos Rubyeye doing what he was told, could he?

(end part fifteen)

Review Responses:

A.F.D: (blinks) Hi! Yes. Thanks! Okay!

Kaeru Shisho: ...I think we all know what those words are (coff especially-if-we've-seen-the-movie-coffcoff). Sadly, Nightfall's sap tolerance is not huge. (shrugs fatalistically)

Kalis: I know, I know! Sorry...

Kanzeyori: ...If I whack you often enough with the Chiming Staff of Chimeric Terror, will it revive your muses? Let's find out. I won't post it here because I'd get flamed to death if not outright ignored, but I'm going to put that fic yours inspired on my site. Just for you. (puts on white glove, blows kiss. Returns ten minutes later and smacks self. Actually, it was already up. 'Sundered.' But still just for you.


	16. Yearning for Chocolate

Disclaimer: see some other chapter.

Notes: Happy (expletive) birthday me, yo. And long live the Ghost of Beatles Past. Sorry about the delay and the shortness, but RL is inexorably devouring me, and I figured short is better than never.

I'd like to invite anyone who reads me, whether I know your name or not, to visit my livejournal (www .livejournal. com/ user/ nightfallrising/ ) and help me decide what to focus on posting until RL stops munching on my brain and I can rely on it for creativity again.

VwV VwV VwV VwV VwV VwV

Holiday

by Nightfall Rising

part fifteen

AwA AwA AwA AwA AwA AwA

He was laughing breathlessly as he careened into the door of the servant's hall and fumbled it open. Well, Father had asked him to come down; he couldn't be held responsible for chaos resultant from the unheard of spectacle of Xellos Rubyeye doing what he was told, could he?

The surprised dignity of the serving minions was enough to make him brace himself on his knees against the door and try to catch his breath. "Have you," he wheezed, "seen Mr. Greyweir anywhere?"

Zoemelguster put down the scalpel he was sharpening and rose to his full height. "Indeed, Master Xellos," he said, inclining his head respectfully and indicating the housekeeper's office with one pearly-gloved tendril. "Mr. Greyweir passed through here just a moment ago."

"Ah, hell," Xellos breathed, sobering. The housekeeper's office usually had maids in it, and always had a door to the outside. That meant flight, complete drunkenness, a socially embarrassing lack of class consciousness, or a freaked out approaching-monogamy-yikes tumble with the help. Not good.

He dashed through, trying not to knock anything over. The room was empty, except for a little human mouse of a maid on a ladder with a duster. "You," he snapped at the maid, who looked down from the clock she was dusting in surprise. He knew he had somehow managed to retain a reputation of courtesy and consideration with the staff, but this was oh so very not the time. "Did Mr. Greyweir come through here?"

"Yes, sir," she squeaked, and waved nervously at the door. "Right through there, Master Xellos! Happy New Year, he said, sir."

Xellos slumped against the desk. Flight. "Oh, hell," he repeated miserably. "And I said I'd bring him back."

"Er, congratulations to Master Valgaav, sir," she offered timidly.

"Food might make this better," he mused to himself, thinking longingly of chocolate, and was hit instead with a glorious burst of panic as she obligingly fainted in terror and fell off the ladder. He looked down at her collapsed form and grinned sheepishly at Zoemelguster, who had poked his head in decorously at the crash. "Oops."

"Is there a problem, Master Xellos?" the butler asked. He'd moved on to polishing the little knife, and he was still going at it.

"No, no," he said, pushing himself off the desk with a little satiated hip-swivel. "Just a very devoted young lady."

"I see, sir."

"Who unaccountably permitted the groom-to-be to escape the residence, Zoemelguster."

"Oh," the butler said, pursing his lips. "I -see,- sir."

"Quite. But still, a most obliging and amiable girl, and we should be forgiving on the holidays, don't you think?"

"Oh, indeed, sir," Zoemelguster smiled blandly.

"So perhaps you'd best arrange for medical treatment," he smiled back cheerfully, picking her up off the floor, and tossing her over his shoulders, "when Master Valgaav is through with her."

The butler nodded understandingly, giving the knife a last few loving rubs. "Exactly as you say, Master Xellos."

end part fifteen

Review Responses:

Kanzeyori, we've already talked about the Lovely Evil, so I'm just going to reiterate my undying love here. (hugs)

Kaeru: I think Val's more broody than scaredy, but... (shrugs) Anyway, sorry I have so little for you this time. Which is why I want to invite you especially on the input question, and because you're one of the few real shonen-ai fans left in this fandom; you keep me going here.

And DoC, you, too. (hey, help me team up on solaas and convert her, ok?) Yeah, the sap gets me, too, sometimes. Did you ever see the Marx Brothers' movies? You know how the love scenes are uninspired, compared to the rest of it? That's because the screenwriter couldn't stand sap, either, and got someone else to do it for him. (envies) I dunno, ffnet may well be a big stinky swamp, but it's got some lotuses growing in it.


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